Post by Irk on Jul 20, 2009 1:04:46 GMT -5
Guess who's back and not posting from public computers, everybody!
So, I got back from Maryland, took a nap, ate some food, and now it is time for TRIP REPORT! Huzzah!
FRIDAY!
Woke up at six, inhaled some breakfast, got cleaned up and dressed, and threw my bags and grandmom's bags into the car. She ate hers at a more reasonable speed and read her paper, understandably. XD We got on the road about 8. Grandmom's made this drive before, so she pointed out a lot of landmarks and places she and grandpop liked to go when he was alive. 'twas neat.
We got to the hotel about ten.
Wee hotel problem - we ordered a room with one regular bed and one foldaway. The site said they had them when we booked the room. Apparently they ALWAYS say that to bring in more customers and they didn't have any left. False advertising! But ah well... the bed was big enough to share. I was just eager to get going, so I unpacked and pretty much ran the blocks to the convention center. Let's make some comparisons here, shall we?
Preregistering - $55 a person. 15 minute line.
Registering at the door - $65 a person. People reporting to have stood there for over three hours.
Permission to laugh at the at-the-door folk?
Anyway, I got my badge (no idea who was on it - the one I wanted had Kagami from Lucky Star dressed as Miku Hatsune but they were all gone ;~
and skipped off to the con. Sadly, the first thing I noticed was an ad for Einsten bagels.
"Screw anime! Let's go eat bagels!"
Somehow managing to resist the bagels, my first activity was to stand on the second floor and find an area to look down at the first to see costumes. All throughout the weekend, costume sightings included:
- six Haruhis. At LEAST. I saw them all standing in a crowd together. Possibly unconsciously willing each other out of existence.
- Grandmom said she saw a few cute teddy bear costumes. I saw a few Pedobear costumes. I'm hoping this is coincidence. ...one of them offered me a lollipop. D8
- SANTA CLAUS.
- Someone wearing a shirt that said "My name is Caboose" in Sharpie. Regardless of my lack of any real interest in Red vs. Blue (I'm assuming that was the reference), I found it hilarious and I now have a costume idea for next year. Pick a character!
- A Rikku costume that stopped traffic. I swear that truck driver was salivating.
- A boy in cat ears, tail, and a bell collar. This world needs more catboys in bell collars. They don't have to be gay. Just CATBOYS IN BELL COLLARS. Somehow I managed to not pet him.
- Sokka from Avatar holding one of Sokka's (really, really bad) paintings. XD
- Pretty much every Pokemon you can think of. Just when I thought I'd seen all of them, two or three more that I hadn't seen would walk by. I could gotten my Pokedex up pretty well in there. ...yes there were too many Mudkip. Give it up.
- Sims! People in headbands with that green diamond. One even had a sign with two emotion symbols on it.
- "Grandmom: *looking at a girl in a cardboard box with hearts on it* ...OK, I give up. What's that supposed to be? The Queen of Hearts?"
It was a Companion Cube. XD
- Every con needs its own Sailor Bubba - a fat guy in a schoolgirl outfit. This one was dressed as a Lucky Star girl... I don't even remember which.
- A Felicia from Darkstalkers who needed to get herself some pants.
- Someone in a way too tight green jumpsuit. Some things cannot be unseen.
- Several GIRs. I am utterly amazed that Invader Zim still has hordes of squealing fans and new pieces of merchandise produced on a regular basis...
In between costume stalking, there were, of course, EVENTS! Friday's list of activities:
- After my first stint of costume stalking, I went for lunch. I feel the need to mention this because of where we ended up - a sandwich shop called Potbelly. Mmm, meatball sub and mocha shake. (Coffee with chocolate is a gift granted to us mortals by the Taste Bud Gods. I don't care what you think). It was decorated really cool inside - very old-timey. They even had a stage with a mic, presumably for Open Mic Nights. I love going into local restaurants. After food, I headed back to the convention for VIDJA GAMES!
- Pop 'n' Music. Yeah, failed. Would really like to learn it, though.
- EPIC PANEL DE PON MATCH. Normally matches on that don't last more than a minute per game. I got one going for over five! We just kept garbage chaining (someone told me I was really good at horizontal chess. Guess that's another term for it?) I lost eventually, but he told me it was one of the best matches he'd had in a while. Not bad for someone who hasn't played much since her N64 exploded years ago! This also included my sad attempt at 3D mode and a lovely little exchange:
"Dude: Aw, I don't know what character to pick! They're all fairies! It's so... GIRLY."
"Me: It's a fairy game. PICK A FAIRY."
"Dude: Oh, look, there's monsters at the bottom here! *picks his character*"
"Me: It's a pink dragon. A freaking pink dragon."
"Dude: And it's the manliest character in here."
- I stayed far away from the SSBB games. I KNEW I would want to play and I KNEW I would get my pathetic ass kicked at it.
- DDR tournament. This involved waiting an hour in line to get a ticket. Then I went back to the Panel de Pon (it is a cute puzzle game with fairies and I'm supposed to resist it?) I am not used to home metal pads, so I lost the second round. Sads.
After my DDR fail I was hungry again, so back out for food! I wanted crabs. Oh, how I wanted crabs. I was in Baltimore and I was going to eat CRABS damn it. But all we could find were crab CAKES, which aren't nearly as good. Instead grandmom and I ended up in Hooter's since my uncles recommend it all the time. ...because they have delicious chicken wings. What were YOU thinking?
So we each got a plate of wings. YAY CHICKEN WINGS. And one of the waitresses had a green fuzzy tail. X3 Apparently they weren't supposed to be wearing costumes but she wanted to sneak one in anyway. C'mon, half the customers were in costume, and let's face it, this is HOOTER'S. I'm sure their main customer base would appreciate a lot of possible anime costumes. I'm just sayin'.
On the way back, I saw the only thing I actually stopped to take a picture of (I was too shy to get pictures of actual people). On the way back to the convention from Hooter's, there was a construction area that went on for about two blocks with a large fence around it. There was an official sign on it that said Long Fence. Some joker took a piece of paper, wrote "is loooong", and tied it up next to it. I laughed way too hard, took the picture, and proceeded to try and explain Longcat to grandmom.
After going back to do some more costume watching (I swear I could have costume watched the whole weekend), I noticed that I hadn't actually hit any panels or video screenings that day, so I went to see what was in the nearest room. Fan parodies. I was a little late, so I got in during the credits of something called AMV Salad. They then went on to play -
- A Flash video that I didn't recognize, it had no title, but it was pretty funny. It involved teenager's dad threatening to take away his son's computer. "Now how do I shut this off? Do I click this? I'm clicking this and it's just opening more stuff. ...what is this picture? Final Fantasy. What's that? A suicide cult? Are you going to kill yourself? And is that a man or a woman? Zippers... no one should be wearing that many zippers... that's it, I'm just unplugging this. *unplugs something and carries it off*"
"Teen's Friend: ...did he just take your laser tag set...?"
- A fake opening animation for an anime about Guitar Hero. ...well, hey, I'd watch it! XD
- A cute little short about a kitsune who wants to use his tails to paint with his one-tailed friends, but he can't because when he dips all his tails in one bucket of paint, he just ends up making a blob. So instead, he dips each tail in a different color and makes rainbow. 'twas adorable.
- A trailer for a Flash that looked so horribly generic I was expecting to take a ridiculous twist. It sadly did not. Just... boring.
- And this is where I left - Alfred Leebop. Some live action thing that I think was supposed to be a parody of Cowboy Bebop, only missing something very important - IT WAS NOT FUNNY. IT WAS NOT TRYING TO BE FUNNY. AND IT WAS LISTED AS 35 MINUTES LONG. I walked out at the "commercial" break, as did half the room. It was just... BAD.
At this point, it was about midnight, so we went back to the hotel. I had my laptop with me, opened it up, connected to the Internet...
...and it dropped ten minutes later. I kept poking at it and poking at it... no good. Eventually I gave up and went to finish stuff on the hotel's public computers. Bedtime: 2 in the morning.
And that's Friday! I'm just gonna post this now - WRITER BURNOUT. Join me next time for SATURDAY'S fun! I did quite a bit more on Saturday, since I then knew the center's layout and could zip around with ease rather than jump into a crowd and hope they were headed to something good.
So, I got back from Maryland, took a nap, ate some food, and now it is time for TRIP REPORT! Huzzah!
FRIDAY!
Woke up at six, inhaled some breakfast, got cleaned up and dressed, and threw my bags and grandmom's bags into the car. She ate hers at a more reasonable speed and read her paper, understandably. XD We got on the road about 8. Grandmom's made this drive before, so she pointed out a lot of landmarks and places she and grandpop liked to go when he was alive. 'twas neat.
We got to the hotel about ten.Wee hotel problem - we ordered a room with one regular bed and one foldaway. The site said they had them when we booked the room. Apparently they ALWAYS say that to bring in more customers and they didn't have any left. False advertising! But ah well... the bed was big enough to share. I was just eager to get going, so I unpacked and pretty much ran the blocks to the convention center. Let's make some comparisons here, shall we?
Preregistering - $55 a person. 15 minute line.
Registering at the door - $65 a person. People reporting to have stood there for over three hours.
Permission to laugh at the at-the-door folk?
Anyway, I got my badge (no idea who was on it - the one I wanted had Kagami from Lucky Star dressed as Miku Hatsune but they were all gone ;~
and skipped off to the con. Sadly, the first thing I noticed was an ad for Einsten bagels."Screw anime! Let's go eat bagels!"
Somehow managing to resist the bagels, my first activity was to stand on the second floor and find an area to look down at the first to see costumes. All throughout the weekend, costume sightings included:
- six Haruhis. At LEAST. I saw them all standing in a crowd together. Possibly unconsciously willing each other out of existence.
- Grandmom said she saw a few cute teddy bear costumes. I saw a few Pedobear costumes. I'm hoping this is coincidence. ...one of them offered me a lollipop. D8
- SANTA CLAUS.
- Someone wearing a shirt that said "My name is Caboose" in Sharpie. Regardless of my lack of any real interest in Red vs. Blue (I'm assuming that was the reference), I found it hilarious and I now have a costume idea for next year. Pick a character!
- A Rikku costume that stopped traffic. I swear that truck driver was salivating.
- A boy in cat ears, tail, and a bell collar. This world needs more catboys in bell collars. They don't have to be gay. Just CATBOYS IN BELL COLLARS. Somehow I managed to not pet him.
- Sokka from Avatar holding one of Sokka's (really, really bad) paintings. XD
- Pretty much every Pokemon you can think of. Just when I thought I'd seen all of them, two or three more that I hadn't seen would walk by. I could gotten my Pokedex up pretty well in there. ...yes there were too many Mudkip. Give it up.
- Sims! People in headbands with that green diamond. One even had a sign with two emotion symbols on it.
- "Grandmom: *looking at a girl in a cardboard box with hearts on it* ...OK, I give up. What's that supposed to be? The Queen of Hearts?"
It was a Companion Cube. XD
- Every con needs its own Sailor Bubba - a fat guy in a schoolgirl outfit. This one was dressed as a Lucky Star girl... I don't even remember which.
- A Felicia from Darkstalkers who needed to get herself some pants.
- Someone in a way too tight green jumpsuit. Some things cannot be unseen.
- Several GIRs. I am utterly amazed that Invader Zim still has hordes of squealing fans and new pieces of merchandise produced on a regular basis...
In between costume stalking, there were, of course, EVENTS! Friday's list of activities:
- After my first stint of costume stalking, I went for lunch. I feel the need to mention this because of where we ended up - a sandwich shop called Potbelly. Mmm, meatball sub and mocha shake. (Coffee with chocolate is a gift granted to us mortals by the Taste Bud Gods. I don't care what you think). It was decorated really cool inside - very old-timey. They even had a stage with a mic, presumably for Open Mic Nights. I love going into local restaurants. After food, I headed back to the convention for VIDJA GAMES!
- Pop 'n' Music. Yeah, failed. Would really like to learn it, though.
- EPIC PANEL DE PON MATCH. Normally matches on that don't last more than a minute per game. I got one going for over five! We just kept garbage chaining (someone told me I was really good at horizontal chess. Guess that's another term for it?) I lost eventually, but he told me it was one of the best matches he'd had in a while. Not bad for someone who hasn't played much since her N64 exploded years ago! This also included my sad attempt at 3D mode and a lovely little exchange:
"Dude: Aw, I don't know what character to pick! They're all fairies! It's so... GIRLY."
"Me: It's a fairy game. PICK A FAIRY."
"Dude: Oh, look, there's monsters at the bottom here! *picks his character*"
"Me: It's a pink dragon. A freaking pink dragon."
"Dude: And it's the manliest character in here."
- I stayed far away from the SSBB games. I KNEW I would want to play and I KNEW I would get my pathetic ass kicked at it.
- DDR tournament. This involved waiting an hour in line to get a ticket. Then I went back to the Panel de Pon (it is a cute puzzle game with fairies and I'm supposed to resist it?) I am not used to home metal pads, so I lost the second round. Sads.
After my DDR fail I was hungry again, so back out for food! I wanted crabs. Oh, how I wanted crabs. I was in Baltimore and I was going to eat CRABS damn it. But all we could find were crab CAKES, which aren't nearly as good. Instead grandmom and I ended up in Hooter's since my uncles recommend it all the time. ...because they have delicious chicken wings. What were YOU thinking?
So we each got a plate of wings. YAY CHICKEN WINGS. And one of the waitresses had a green fuzzy tail. X3 Apparently they weren't supposed to be wearing costumes but she wanted to sneak one in anyway. C'mon, half the customers were in costume, and let's face it, this is HOOTER'S. I'm sure their main customer base would appreciate a lot of possible anime costumes. I'm just sayin'.
On the way back, I saw the only thing I actually stopped to take a picture of (I was too shy to get pictures of actual people). On the way back to the convention from Hooter's, there was a construction area that went on for about two blocks with a large fence around it. There was an official sign on it that said Long Fence. Some joker took a piece of paper, wrote "is loooong", and tied it up next to it. I laughed way too hard, took the picture, and proceeded to try and explain Longcat to grandmom.
After going back to do some more costume watching (I swear I could have costume watched the whole weekend), I noticed that I hadn't actually hit any panels or video screenings that day, so I went to see what was in the nearest room. Fan parodies. I was a little late, so I got in during the credits of something called AMV Salad. They then went on to play -
- A Flash video that I didn't recognize, it had no title, but it was pretty funny. It involved teenager's dad threatening to take away his son's computer. "Now how do I shut this off? Do I click this? I'm clicking this and it's just opening more stuff. ...what is this picture? Final Fantasy. What's that? A suicide cult? Are you going to kill yourself? And is that a man or a woman? Zippers... no one should be wearing that many zippers... that's it, I'm just unplugging this. *unplugs something and carries it off*"
"Teen's Friend: ...did he just take your laser tag set...?"
- A fake opening animation for an anime about Guitar Hero. ...well, hey, I'd watch it! XD
- A cute little short about a kitsune who wants to use his tails to paint with his one-tailed friends, but he can't because when he dips all his tails in one bucket of paint, he just ends up making a blob. So instead, he dips each tail in a different color and makes rainbow. 'twas adorable.
- A trailer for a Flash that looked so horribly generic I was expecting to take a ridiculous twist. It sadly did not. Just... boring.
- And this is where I left - Alfred Leebop. Some live action thing that I think was supposed to be a parody of Cowboy Bebop, only missing something very important - IT WAS NOT FUNNY. IT WAS NOT TRYING TO BE FUNNY. AND IT WAS LISTED AS 35 MINUTES LONG. I walked out at the "commercial" break, as did half the room. It was just... BAD.
At this point, it was about midnight, so we went back to the hotel. I had my laptop with me, opened it up, connected to the Internet...
...and it dropped ten minutes later. I kept poking at it and poking at it... no good. Eventually I gave up and went to finish stuff on the hotel's public computers. Bedtime: 2 in the morning.
And that's Friday! I'm just gonna post this now - WRITER BURNOUT. Join me next time for SATURDAY'S fun! I did quite a bit more on Saturday, since I then knew the center's layout and could zip around with ease rather than jump into a crowd and hope they were headed to something good.
... sailor bubba... felicia in need of pants and probably a coat... LoL sounds like a con to me!
LoL I've also been told that the wings @ Hooters are good.
