Otakon

[sincere]

First of all, I'd like to apologize to the wonderful people I was supposed to call, but I totally lost the list of phone numbers that I was to contact wonderful people with, before we even got to the convention, in like Washington DC. ;_;  I'm sorry~~ I wanted to see you guys muchly, but alas, I was weak.


Thursday

• On the Long Island Railroad passing between Jamaica and New York City, we passed the biggest, starkest, most Orwellian factory-esque structure I have ever seen: it was a Presbyterian church. I'd never noticed it before because the part of it that caught my attention was new: big glossy dark wall fixtures in the shape of letters, facing the train tracks, in the shape of letters. They read, "Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?" I'm amused by the blatant guilt-tripping in selecting that quote, but it's the classiest such attempt I've endured in a long while.



• Before even getting into Penn Station I had a new story idea. Damn you functional brain. By today it has characters and everything. The universe needs a name, and I'm agonizing now over whether or not to toss in some advanced technology.



• Pulling in at Union Station to meet Nariko-san and Ju-san, I saw a billboard advertisement with a woman meditating in an empty room, sitting lotus-style, dressed in white, almost but not quite serene. The words on the side are, "I'm centered. I'm focused. I'm hungry." In the corner is the McDonald's logo. Ah, yes, McDonald's: holding you back from enlightenment since...



• We went to an Asian marketplace, where I ate lots of koalas. Mmm, koalas.

Friday

• We overlept, but got to the hotel at a reasonable time to meet up with Anago-san, and then headed straight for the dealer's room, where all of us immediately threw at least a hundred dollars at various people selling things. My loot includes the newest volumes of Tsubasa, XXXholic, Fullmetal Alchemist; two separate articles of Genjuu Bunsho merchandise (!!!  They have MERCHANDISE for it too?!); two little cellphone strap figurines of Souji and Hijikata from Peacemaker because they were so cute I had to; an Angel Sanctuary artbook because drool; a DNAngel notebook for same reason; a random FMA stationary thing plus a poster, plus all the cards I could steal from the Funimation booth; and three English volumes -- Megatokyo vol 1, Suikoden III vol 1, and Demon Diary vol 1, because Pie-chan tells me it's good~. This breaks my vow to never buy anything from Tokyopop ever again, but I'm sure God will understand that it was a convention and everything was 20% off and I was just experimenting, really.



• I saw the first volume of "Princess Ai", the terrifying Courtney Love self-insert manga, and I was compelled by dark forces beyond my reckoning to pick it up and look at it. It is very pretty. I put it down and felt dirty for hours afterwards.



• Vol-san used mysterious psychic powers to locate me despite my having lost his cell number; it was freaky. He brought a friend, called "G", and we watched some anime with them, and don't mistake me for a Gundam Wing fangirl or anything, but Treize was totally lounging on the bed in our hotel room. Be jealous.

Saturday

• I did not go back to the dealer's room.



• I tried to find the comic book guests -- Mac Hall, Little Gamers, etc -- but they were nowhere to be found, conspicuous blanks in time and space where they should have been. The list of autograph sessions didn't have them up there. I was confused, and nobody could tell me where they were: it was like some sort of mystery. People had heard that friends of a friend had seen these legendary figures, but nobody could confirm anything. Eventually I decided I'd try again Sunday, but I failed then too.



• The L'Arc en Ciel concert was attended by several thousand people, probably about 75% of the con attendees. You probably wouldn't recognize the dealer's room, it would be so empty. It was wonderful, even though I only knew three of their songs, because they tried to talk to us in English. "Did you eat crop?!?" and "Would you like to eat my banana?!?" Before the encore, a guitarist came out with a dolphin mask on and asked us if we knew who he was, after a rousing kazoo number. Everybody said his name or the name of the band, and he said, "No. I am dolphin. I am from Baltimore Aquarium. I am tired of swimming, so I come to hear Japanese rock music." So needless to say it was the best concert ever, and not just because they made such a big production out of Blurry Eyes, my favorite song of theirs, and one of the encore numbers.



• We discovered that night that Baltimore, like the whole Japan, possibly to make L'Arc en Ciel feel more at home, closes down at 7pm. We literally had to prowl for blocks, through three or more closed restaurants, before we could find a place to eat.



• Also we discovered that there was lying and confusion going on with our hotel suite, the result being that I was paying $30 more than I thought I was going to be. That was very annoying -- and don't even talk about the fact that our floor was stuffed to the brim with people who were loudly drunk throughout the night, normal human beings who sneered at the "freak" convention-goers, and our toilet was clogged the whole time. Plus it came out of my birthday money. *sigh...*

Sunday

• We went to see "Hero", the upcoming Jet Li movie by the director of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The movie was very colorful, a little repetitive, and full of shoulder-slobbering, if you were sitting where I was sitting. Bailey is up in arms, so more on that if you follow QPQ.



• I considered going into the dealer's room for the clearances, but the line was fifteen minutes long and I was not that desperate to spend money I could otherwise spend on an elaborate scheme to replace my missing PDA before my mother notices I lost an expensive piece of high-tech hardware in a foreign-speaking country on the other side of the world.



• We started to drive back to Nariko-san's house in Virginia, only it was all with the storming and such, so it took us an extra hour and a half or so to get there. Then we lingered too long in her house, and by the time we got to Union Station, I had missed the 5:20pm train, so we had dinner and I caught the 6:20... But the 6:20 got into Penn almost two hours late because the 5:20 had suffered a malfunction en route and we had to crawl past it forever. So it was after 10pm when I arrived Penn Station, and then I had to wait until 11:40 before I could catch the railroad to my town, and then it was 1am when I finally got home. This is fine for me, but really bad for the old folk who have to drive me. Sorry...!

Some details on the Tsubasa volume I got (theme: Fai and Kurogane are going to have SO much sex) and possibly my new idea (theme: gift from God... or Someone Else?) later, when I feel like it.