Aa-chan

Diary of a Deranged Fangirl
2006-08-08 13:14:38 (UTC)

Otakon Weekend: Final Act Shutting Down

Sunday starts ironically about an hour and a half after I
went to bed. Late Saturday night/ mega early Sunday morning
you can pretty much bank on the fact that you'll not get a
lick of sleep because the con kids are up running around,
talking, screaming, and doing God only knows what else up
and down the halls of the hotel. So when I went to bed, it
took awhile because there were these kids sitting outside
their hotel room talking really, really loud. I think about
a half hour into their screaming J'aime called down to the
front desk to ask them to make the kids shut-up. I can't
say I blame her for doing that, cause they were really,
really annoying.

So finally I guess hotel security comes by and makes them
put an end to their shenanigans and the halls are silent.
Okay, so I go to sleep... At about... I'd say 3:40 someone
slips their room key into our card reader and tries to open
our door. This wakes both me and J'aime out of a dead
sleep. Then we hear them do it again. J'aime and I dash
out of bed and go to the door to see who's doing this
(probably someone so f-ed up drunk they didn't realize they
had the wrong door). So J'aime and I look out the peep
holes and don't see anyone there. I think by the time we'd
gotten to the door they realized that they had the wrong
door. But ugh... After hearing someone try to come in the
room and then not finding anyone there... Dude that's a
Silent Hill 4 moment and that shit isn't cool at three
something in the morning. Sigh... After that J'aime and I
both crawl back into bed and go to sleep.

Well, after getting about maybe three hours of sleep my
Sunday officially begins at 7:30. I decided to get up and
get dressed to deal with the hotel bill. I was going change
the reservation from a stay until Monday to leaving Sunday.
I didn't want to stay until Monday because it was expensive
enough with the rental car, gas, parking (which I'll get
into that in a moment), and everything else. But with our
leaving Sunday the price went down from $630 something to
$430 something. And because the girl at the front desk was
not the brightest start in the planetarium I used my debit
card to pay for it. Ouch. Well that completely cancelled
out my Sunday Hentai Run Day, but it's cool I can get my
trash online, its fine. So everyone was in the process of
getting dressed and Hunty and Allie had to leave because
their bus left at about 10:30. So we all said our goodbye's
and they left, I was sad to see them go.

Meanwhile, J'aime, Scarbie, and I had to clean up, pack up,
and load the car up before checking out of the hotel. Since
we both wanted to cosplay today, which is something we've
never actually done before, and I wanted to re-put on Mau I
knew there would be no way I could work my suitcase, dress
bag, Teveru bag, Dvd player, and still be able to navigate
around in Mau without falling flat on my face. So we loaded
up the car first and then I got dressed up and we all went
back to the convention. J'aime and I hit the dealer’s room
while Scarbie went to find an AMT with actual money in it.

We wondered around and looked at stuff. I think J'aime
brought a manga. I looked around at stuff but ended up not
buying anything. I did however manage to get on a mailing
list for trip information to Japan. They had something
about a 8 day seven night (or something like that) deal to
Tokyo, which I think included airfare and hotel. This will
come in majorly handy for my dream of going to Tokyo Game
Show next year. And with E3 being shut down now, Tokyo Game
Show is now the only game around.

However, we finally re-catch up with Scarbie and continue to
walk around the dealer’s room. I nosed around the hentai
and really thought hard about buying something, but they
didn't have WordsWorth and I'll be damned if I'm paying $20
bucks for Moral Hazard when it's only a half an hour. Same
thing goes for Hot Juicy Teacher and the last installment of
Slutty Princess Diaries. So as I said Sunday Hentai Run Day
was cancelled this con too. Oh well.

So after we grew bored of wondering around the dealer’s
room, we all headed to the artist alley, because Scarbie
wanted to pre-order Project Snake. So I took her over to
the good people at X-Strike Studios. She pre-ordered
Project Snake and I asked the one question I had been dying
to ask since they showed the outtakes at AMA. What happened
when the cops showed up? And they said it was just one of a
couple run-ins they had with campus police. And said
something about the outtake doesn't show you how many cops
were there.

In the outtake you see two cop cars pull up, but they said
it was four of them. Because they're running around in sky
masks holding AirSoft guns they look like scary terrorists.
Then they said the guy who played Ocelot ended up having to
get in the back of the cop car because he had left his id in
his car... Oh that seemed like such a mess. But they said
Project Snake had a lot less cop run-ins then some of their
other movies. They said that only had two, some other movie
they'd done had 4.

I also asked them when they expected Project Snake to come
out and they gave me the standard "Money Pit" line of 2
weeks. Y'all!? It's been coming out in two weeks for the
last six months! But I guess that's just the way something
Konami related is. After all when Metal Gear Solid was
first scheduled to come out it was supposed to be the summer
of 1996 or so. When did come out? Fall of 1998?! Back
when Konami was pulling their, "It's coming out next week.
Actually it's coming out next month. No wait, it's coming
out next year. We don't know when it's coming out?!" So it
goes for Project Snake as well...

After she pre-ordered we all left to try to find the
Cosplay.com photoshoot which was going on at 2. This would
mark the last thing we'd be doing at Otakon cause we had to
leave to take Scarbie to the airport. So we went down to
the fountains and waited for a long time. While we were
waiting we ran into Kevin Lillard of A Fansview and we
hugged him and asked how he was doing. He said he was doing
well, which was good. So he took our pictures and we talked
for a little bit more, before going to sit back down to wait
for them to start the shoot.

Finally after about 15 extra minutes they called for
everyone to get in for the picture. I kneeled down and that
was a fatal mistake. J'aime ended up accidentally licking
the girl who was dressed as Mei Ling at the MGS photoshoot
(you'll have to get her to tell you the details of that one)
and it was fun. So after that we headed back upstairs and
were getting ready to head back to the car when I ran into
Jez! Wai! I hadn't seen him all weekend and we all talked
for a good while. I was so very happy to see him. I got to
hug everyone I knew at the con this year! It was great. No
one was left out of the love!

After we left Jez, we headed back to the car, I called
Brendan and told him I was leaving and we took off for BWI.

Oh about that parking lot. Because that stupid ass baseball
game was in town, parking lots decided they wanted to
skyrocket their prices. So where the lot was originally $10
dollars a day to park it turn out to be more then that. We
all ended up paying $50 bucks to get out of that damn lot!
I hope you bastards choke on it!

But after that we took Scarbie back to the airport. Some
lady looked at me oddly because I still had Mau on when we
took her to the airport, but eh, what can you do. We all
hugged each other and said our goodbye's then J'aime and I
took off back toward Philly.

Since we had to take the rental car back we had to stop in
Ridley Park to get gas (thankfully I knew a gas station
around there, because that's where Tony use to live). And
because we're still in costume, people are looking. One
lady up at the gas station asked us what we were all dudded
up for. So I told her and she said we looked very cute. We
thanked her for the compliment and took back off for the
airport and dropped the rental car off. Another lady asked
us about our costumes and gave us a compliment and we sat
and waited for mom to collect us from Avis.

Ah it's always so sad to see Otakon end; it usually marks
the end of summer for me...

Well all in all, it was a pretty good weekend. I wasn't
nearly as excellent (for me) as last year's Otakon, but it
did have it's good points. See this being mine and J'aime's
7th Otakon we often forget Otakon has a tendency to be
really, really good, really, really awful, or just okay.
This year was just okay. My panels didn't turn out the way
I expected, but I'm fine with that. I'll ask to do the
cosplay panel again next year and the Metal Gear one will
retire on a pretty good note. As I said I have one more
Metal Gear related thing I would like to do, but if it's not
granted then fine, I don't really mind at all. I can say
that I not only did it, but did it twice. My costumes came
out very good, despite one getting almost destroyed, and I
got to see everyone who I knew was going to the con. I got
to see Jez, Hunty, Allie, Scarbie, Brendan, Chocochick, and
J'aime came all the way out from CA and that really made me
happy. I know there was a lot of dramatics before and
during the convention, but overall I did have fun and I'm
thankful to all who came out and supported J'aime and I
during the panels.

With Otakon being over I must say for right now, I am
conventioned out! I know the dates for Otakon next year are
up and I know the hotels are probably sold out right now.
But I can't bring myself to reserve a room because I am
Otakoned out! Besides I'm not sure if I'll be going to the
Tokyo Game Show next year. Although the dates are in late
July next year, so I still may feasibly be able to go to
both Otakon and TGS if I save money properly and cut down a
con or two.

Another thing I know I say I'm conventioned out, but this
will probably end up changing in Mid-September/ Early
October when I get annoyed at work and I start to hear
things about Usa. Actually I already have the time off for
Usa, so J'aime and I are debating if we want to go to Usa or
not. If we do go, I think I'm finally ready to do the
Artist Alley thing. Maybe I can unload some costumes or
something. I don't know??? Right now, Usa is in limbo and
will be on the we'll see list until about the middle of next
month.

Thank you everyone for your friendship and support. I
really do have the best friends list of anyone online!

Woo-hoo: Wai! I survived Otakon 13!

Barf: Nanimonai




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