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Fri Trip began by trying to figure out how we'd leave. see, since i work an hour south of where we live i figured we simply just drive on down and get me on the way. Luckily, amber volunteered her car for this trip so i gladly headed back to the house and had her car do all the work. we picked up ko and were on our way to orlando; dark and rainy as ever but we were making great time. the first gas stopwas definately the most eventful thing of the night. first off, this was a hybrid Stuckey's / British Petroleum and as we pulled off some indian dude came up to us saying that they were switching shifts and to not pump gas. we got drinks and used the bathroom and i just up and prepaid for gas got some frapuccino and gum and we pumped gas. While pumping i handed amber the mocca and since she needed both hands to open it, we got the clever idea that we'd simultaneously switch the gas pump and mocca. she released too late and i yanked it to fast then Pissshhoom, the hose sprayed all over amber's pants and instead of getting peeved that she reeked like fuel she busted out laughing and almost spilled her drink. so although she had gas on her even after changing we pressed on. near our destination in midland FL, we hit 3 toll booths. the first went okay since we had a real boothman and $5 but the next one took all of our remaining coins (and never turned green either). So by the final toll, we were fresh out of any form of coin currency. out of the .50 toll we paid only about .08 from what we found in our luggage. we paid what we could, got the toss bypass siren and drove off. Take note however, this is the SECOND time i've blown that toll station thats never manned. the first was AFO 1. Gene's house was a bit complicated to find since our directions showed the fastest route to his exact street, not his neighborhood. when we arrived we had all simultaneously hit our second wind and were buzzin, which somehow carried to Gene and woke him up as well. We stayed up all night until around 5 am talking about things, catching up on our lives, and checking out all of his awesome new gadgets. High Definition tv, hooked to his PC chock full of anime episodes and other goodies. Not to mention Top Secret new XBox 360 projects he was working on. His whole house was completely wireless, even the lights had flip on touch-screen switches! Yikes! Sat We grudgingly got up the next morning early and headed out to the Cheap hotel, Masters Inn (thanks for the reccommendation DJ Inu!), located directly across from the the official con hotel. Our room was pretty slick and came with all the usual hotel standards and didn't evenhave a cable blocker for videogame hook up. Unfortunately i couldn't find my RF switch before we left so we'd have to pick that up later. The con seemed kinda slow up until the main area but i went straight into the staff room to get my badge. It was pretty amazing how many people attempted to stop me from going in even though i had told them i was a panelist. Gundamboy was already there all set and ready, happy as ever that i would be able to do another panel this year. They didn't have any spare badges so they just had me write my name over some other guy's badge.Gundamboy also pointed out that this year I wouldnt be competing the same time as the Hentai Room, which would fall after my panel. However, the time slot i got was TWO FRIGGIN HOURS and the footage i had would last at most an hour and 15 minutes. Kough & Grand Master B scouted the dealers room and Amber and I went to the two storied Mc Donald's across the street. We only saw a cosplayer or two there but oh wow, it was a nice Mickey D's! They had you order before you get in line so all you did was pay/pickup. There was a huge aquarium there too. The best part was that the secod floor was an arcade, and had Pump Premire 2 there! only 50 cents for 3 songs! We played until the Mc Nugget 16 pack seemed to not want to play anymore. Back at the con everyone was just planning to mill around until something fun happened so FAST FORWARD to the dinner. We all met up and managed to squish into 3 cars. Selina's Honda had car problems (cause its Honda, thats why) which slowed us down a bit but it got started and we all met up. Dade was there waiting and we got seated nicely in a huge long booth. The cheese explosion nachos were really good and we got plenty for everyone, if not too much for everyone. The seating was kind of funny because dade got the end of the table so it was almost as if it was His group of Fujikomians, but yea it was the Big Dade Dinner afterall. Unison's birthday was also today so we got a heavy chocolate cake and all sang to her. We took group pics outside, despite it sprinkling a bit of rain, the middle finger pose of course. On the way back Chris took too long to get in the car so Amber popped the trunk and he got home that way, which was comfy for him since the sleeping bag was back there. At a stoplight some boys in a truck asked us if we wanted any dip! haha. We had a few mixes of Crown + Coke before going back to the con. It was almost showtime for the "LOL @ The Internet" panel and still even with Shin throwing in some extra footage, I wouldn't be able to fill the 2 Hour timeslot. As chance had it, Mandymoo was in the lobby with her friends on her cel phone. She offered to let us use her desktop in her room if we could just provide a power cable, which Shin had! So Ko and i blitzed across the hotel, through swamps and bushes and other mess and still had time to go through the hotel's rigorous process of agreeing to the $7.99 sevice charge for DSL Lite internet access. Mandy's computer was abysmally slow but thanks to SQ who uploaded a good lot of flash animations to 1000000000chan we got at least 30 minutes of stuff for the panel. We had everything all hooked up and ready to go in time. We started off with all of drawp.com (Kneedrawp's) videos that he sent me including a new one finished just days before the con. Then It Happened. Siren Alarm "Clear Out!" from the hotel security A fire alarm had gone off and they needed to clear the entire building. Complete evacuation of an entire hotel event area on its most busy night. We scrambled to take all of Shin's laptop equipment with us as we didn't trust it to be safe and really had no idea when we'd be allowed back in. Everyone made it out and we found each other outside, made "Burn Motherf#$%&r, BURN!" jokes and some kids even had glowsticks so they started an outside dance crowd. Come to find out that AnimeSushi's "80s Dance" had pumped their fog machine too much to the point that detectors went off thinking it was smoke. The wait wasn't that bad really. Everyone filed back in and we hooked everything up again. Perhaps this was a blessing is disguise as everyone was looking for a place to go while the Fog cleared up in the dance. Amber got a totally awesome idea. Just as we started playing the panel's vids she went into the hallway and screamed "ATTENTION EVERYONE!!! ITS OOOOOONNNNN!!!" which resulted in mostly confused looks but a good crowd of people came into the room to see what was up. The room was filled. Completely packed even to the point people were standing. We got the most exciting and hillarious video clips out first and followed up with Flash animations. After the flash animations began, the crowd died out. Slowly at first but then in waves. I'll admit the newground animations dragged on way more then I remembered when setting up the list of animations to play so based on this we said Screw It, and tried to get the Dr. Tran video to play as it was a hit at last year's event. The wiring got mixed up and we were unable to play anything. The room was near graveyard by then anyway so no real loss. the panel went near exactly the same as last years. a Really really nice peak with huge crowds of people and then just the fujikoma crew. An hour had been filled though and it was no real loss to leave it when we did.I wish to thank everyone for coming to this and hope next years stays as popular as the previous years. Amber called it a night and chilled in the hotel. Chris went to Locky & Lindsays to play PopNMusic and other new imports. Ko and I got hammered and found Liz's Jacuzzi Party. Mike, Stevie B, Doug, and Jan were all here with a really sweet fruit alcohol. Hex showed up later on and even Chris came back after us convincing him. It was nice just to chill by the pool for awhile. As always Steve passed out and that summed up the night. We noticed some people had actually fallen asleep in the pool layout chairs! Sun My camera batteries had died and i of course forgot the recharger. Went and got new ones from WalGreens and of course, after 1 picture taken, my Card is full, so i exchange that and get a quick disposable one. Nobody was around in the morning. Amber and i got some things in the dealer's room; two really cute Cat-Sushi girl shirts. I wanted to bring others with me but it seemed like i was the only one hell-bent on going to the... -=Nickelodeon Hotel Presents Lazy Town LIVE Event=- So i arrive at the Nickelodeon hotel about 10 mins before the 2:00 show starts (slept
through their 11am one, and Chris didn;t want to go to that one). i'm not a guest at the
hotel and i didn't have any kind of pass. so i just run in, ask one of the hotel girls
where the show is at. -=End Lazytown LIVE Event=- |
