Stuff :: Conventions :: Otakon 2004
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Neo1337's Writeup
Okay, now I think I'll get around to writing out that review of Otakon:
The 29th / Thursday
I got to the airport about an hour or so before my flight took off. By the time I got through security, my plane was already boarding. It was just a short one-hour flight from Ontario to Phoenix, but it was just a warm up for the flight to come. The flight arrived late so I had to run to the next gate. Thankfully, I made it just in time, though yet again the flight was already boarding when I got there. The flight was as I expected it to be: long and boring. The people that sat around me were neither intresting nor annoying; they sat there and said nothing. However, the person sitting next to me was a little old asian lady who starting dozing off and leaning over on to me. If it was someone I knew I would not have minded much, but since it was a stranger it was been a bit weird. They showed some movie about two lawyers who don't like each other, but end up accidentally getting married. I don't remember the name of the movie or much about it. After or during the movie they served (breakfast/lunch/whatever the meal is called when you are crossing thorough time zones), but by the time they had gotten back to where I was sitting, they had ran out of food. I had also bought a new cd player that was able to read mp3s, but after the movie when I turned it on and starting to listen to it the music suddenly stoped and after that it would not read any more cd's. I tried all the tools that I had on the plane which included my car keys, and my hands. So, trying to fix it just involved my hitting it, more or less. It continued to not work after that (stupid Wal-Mart. >.>). After that, nothing much of interest happened on the plane. While the plane was making the final approach I noticed how different it was from flying into/out of LAX or ONT since there were trees and other swampish areas all around. We landed and I went to the baggage claim to get my bag...and waited.... and waited some more... then realized my bag was M.I.A. I went to the baggage claim office thing and found out that it would not get there untill about 7:30, and my plane got there at 4:20 or so. I was planning on checking in to the hotel, then heading over to the convention center to pick up my badge so I would not have to wait in line the next day. But instead, I had to wait around for a while so I could pick up my bag from the airport. So I waited in a long line that was about as long as the convention's would be. After I got my bag I just kinda went to my hotel room and went to sleep.
Cyan's Take
America West is notoriously bad with baggage handling. Best thing to do? Take everything onboard with you as a carry-on. I was waiting for an hour or so on Friday to pick up my luggage; it delayed me enough to miss an early showing of Otaku no Video I wanted to attend. :(
30th / Friday
Woke up; did the usual morning thing and headed off to to convention. My hotel was six miles away from the convention so I had to take the light rail to it. The light rail station was a mile away from the con. I could have chosen to take a bus to the station, but I just walked instead. While walking, I noticed how loud all the bugs in the forest were. Went to buy my ticket from the machines and noticed that they were both broken. I decided that I would just ride the train to the next stop and buy a ticket there, but I ended up just going all the way without getting one. After finally getting to the convention center, I saw that the lines were unbelievable. There were three different ones, and all of them were quite long. While wandering around trying to find the correct line, I saw someone I knew in my chatroom. I went up to him while he was showing off his computer to some random passerby. He didn't know who I was at first since I had to say that I was Neo. His words were, "Jesus Christ." I wasn't able to speak to him for that long since I was still looking for the end of the line I was supposed to be in. I eventually found it and proceeded to wait. Nothing intresting happened while waiting. After getting my badge I just kinda wandered around trying to figure out the way things were laid out, which I never really accomplished. I managed to find the line to get the sticker so that I could get into the L'Arc~en~Ciel concert, which I am very happy about. After that, I went to the artist alley and waited for it to open. When it opened I found the table for Mac-Hall and had him sign my GBA:SP. I also bought a Cthulhu shirt and poster which I had signed as well. I went to the Apple Geeks table which was right next to them, and bought a power symbol bandana from. After I left the Artist Alley, I returned a few minutes later wearing the new shirt as a shirt-ninja and had a picture taken of me. After that I headed over to the opening ceremonies and saw them since I have never gone to any of the Anime Expo ceremonies. I wandered around a little more then headed up to the OtaCafe where I was to meet people from my irc chatroom. Kaori was already there, but left to do somthing or another, I think. So I went inside and waited for a bit untill Tomoyo called and said everyone including herself and Kouran were outside. I guess it wasn't to easy to see me when I had a shirt covering my head. The three of us waited outside the room untill we were joined by Kaori, Cyanoacry along with Francesca (his little sister), and Jess (forget whcich nickname she goes by) (ChibiJesh/Naru/etc.). We started taking pictures of one another. Tomoyo wasn't very willing to let us take pictures, but I was still able to get a few, and then she tried to stab me for that. After we met up, we just kinda wandered around not doing anything special. Kaori, Kouran and Jess all needed to get their stickers to see the concert,and they made it to the line even though it was only going to be open for 2 more minutes. We went over to some mall-type place and got somthing to drink and then they decided to go watch the fanparodies but I had to go since the light rail stops running at 11. I headed back to my crummy hotel room and fell asleep.
Cyan's Take
Not much happened after Neo left. Tomoyo went off to her hotel, and Kouran split off to join her little group cluster. That left me and Kaori -- and the outcome is rather unsuprising. We ended up not doing much in the Marriot hotel lobby, due to the fact that Kaori had left the power cord for his brieftop at home. A couple episodes of R.O.D. the TV was all we could manage to watch. Zombification took a hold of us there and then.
31st / Saturday
Went to the convention center and met up with Kaori as I walked into the building. We went up to the Otacafe and sat in front of there for a bit before heading over to the mall where we got Starbucks and then headed up to Suncoast where Kaori bought the first volumes of Tsubasa, Pita Ten, and Mahoromatic. After that we headed back to the convention and wandered around the dealers hall where I got a couple Full Metal Alchemist trading figures. We headed up to the Otacafe to wait for the others to join us. People joined us and we just kinda sat there waiting since it took a while for some of them to join up with us. We joined up and were going to get ready for the concert -- we were not allowed to have cameras or bags with us at the concert. Tomoyo and I droped our stuff off at Kouran's hotel room since it was closer than Tomoyo's and mine was just out of the question. We went off to find the line which was not hard to miss since it was the longest line I have ever seen in my life. It stretched around a couple buildings doubled back on it's self along one wall and it took a while to find the end. Tomoyo tried to find out where one of her friends were at so we could cut in line but it didn't work. While waiting at the end of the line Kaori and Kouran didn't want to wait so they wandered off to do other stuff leaving Cyanoacry, Francesca, Tomoyo, and I to wait in line. (Edit: Yeah. They left. Lazy people who didn't want to wait... -cyan) They left and the line kept moving a little by little. When the doors opened it just kept moving at a sort of steady pace -- it just kept stopping too because of traffic. (The line crossed several interections, several driveways, and merged with itself a couple of times. -cyan) We finally got in and took seats in the back which is good because we would have gone deaf and blind if we had sat any closer. While waiting they were showing the first episode of FMA on the big screens on the side, although it was dubbed. L'Arc~en~Ciel came out and played music from their album 'Smile' along with a couple that were not. He also said some rather random things: "Do You eat Crab?! Do you eat Crab?! I ate 2!!" and "Do You Like Evangelion?! I am.... Evangelion!!! I am Evangelion gone BERSERK!", Hyde is an odd guy it seems. It was a good show but we were all partically deaf when we left the concert. We tried to locate kaori and Kouran again so that we could all go to the masquerade together. But since Kaori left his cellphone in his bag which was in Cyanoacry's room it made it a little difficult. We retrieved his bag from the hotel room and proceeded to the masquerade line. We got to the back and sat down when Kaori and Kouran got our attention and were a couple rows up in the line from us. After some stealthy cutting in the line we were all together. The show was pretty good except for the fact I was sitting behind some tall guy with cat ears on. Some of the more memorable skits were Card Captor Will, A spoof of a Monty Python bit, 5 guys doing the same thing as Yatta, although they were all pretty good. After the show we headed over to Kouran's hotel to pick up stuff and I headed off to my hotel making use of a cab since the light rail had long since stopped.
Cyan's Take
Well, here they are. My conspiracy theories on what REALLY happened after Kaori and Kouran left. You see, when we went back to the masquerade line, they were only a couple feet ahead. We were away for 2 hours. This makes me conclude that there was something they did after leaving the line. Now, there were a lot of possibilities, but one stood out the most. If it isn't obvious enough, Kaori's acting like Keitaro in a bad pinch... And man is it hard to write online and be ambiguous. Oh well. This leaves a plethora of possibilities involving Kaori and Kouran as the two main characters. It could've gone like a hentai doujinshi, or it could've gone like a shoujo manga... there's way too many different combinations to pick from. Let's just say that Tomoyo and I thought it was the former. And Kaori -- good luck killing me when you see this. :P
1st / Sunday
Woke up to see that it was raining, although I already knew it was going to happen. I watched the weather channel a bit since it was the first channel the TV turned to whenever it was turned on. Luckily one of the booths in the dealers hall was selling FMA umbrella's so I just bought one. I checked out of my crappy hotel and had to drag my suitcase with me to the rail station in the rain which would not start running untill 11 and it was 20 'till 9 when I got to the station. Since I was already at the station and there was nothing for me to do I just kinda sat there. After a while some other peopel that were going to Otakon showed up and waited along with me, we all talked untill we got to the convention center. I tried walking around normally with my suitcase but since there were many many people it did not work out very well. I just kinda gave up and decided to get somthing to drink from the Starbucks inside the convention center and sit outside the Otacafe waiting for people to show up. I got a couple pictures of cosplayers and thats about it. Eventually Cyanoacry and Francesca showed up and Cyan wandered off to get something (Drinks. -cyan), then Kaori wandered up and Cyanoacry returned, and then Tomoyo called becuase she didn't want to pull her suitcase all the way up to the third floor where we were at so I went down and carried it up for her. Nothing too intresting happened that day; we just kinda sat and chatted. I took a couple more pictures of the group and Tomoyo tried to stab me again. After that we just kinda split up to do different things. I wandered around with no real destination in mind, I was going to leave the con at 2 so that I could be at the airport on time and have plenty of time to spare so I could buy some reading material. I went to the dealers hall, but since I still had my suitcase with me it made it kinda of difficult. When it started to get close to 2 I started trying to find people so I could say goodbye but I was only able to find Tomoyo. I took a Taxi to the airport where I checked in and then just kinda sat around untill my plane arrived. I started talking to someone with a Otakon shirt on that was on the same plane that I was one. But he didn't sit anywhere near me so I didn't get to talk to him at all on the flight. They showed Garfield on the way back and I actually got to get somthing to eat this time. When I landed in Phoenix I had to run to the next gate since the next flight was already boarding. While running my tube with my posters and wallscroll opened up and my stuff fell out so I had to stop and collect that stuff back up. I made my flight on time, but I was quite tired by the time I finally got there since the gate it was at was on the other side of the American West terminal. Plane ride was rather uninteresting, the guy sitting next to me was pretty friendly though. Anyways I landed, went home to drop off my stuff, shower, and then head off stright to work. That's about it of the convention, I had a blast there even with the lack of sleep and food. I know I left some details out, I figure it's because of the lack of sleep while I was there. If anyone that was there would like to fill in any of the blank spots feel free. Now I just have to start planning for next year.
Cyan's take
Yeah, that's about it for the convention. Nothing major, nothing groundbreaking, yet at the same time it should've caused the Third Impact. Really. The fact that more than 10% of the #explain channel was gathered together in one physical location should've caused a mini-black hole to form, destroying spacetime in the process. Or at the very least, a bunnygirl should've popped out of the sky to say hello.