Katsu trip began driving from Florida to Atlanta to Virginia, but thanks to Nikki's dad we were able to meet up halfway in Columbia, South Carolina.

Arriving at the Marriott, we parallel parked and hoisted all of junk to the room. The hotel tack'd on extra Parking Fee of $12 per day which at first seemed pretty steep, but after learning what a nightmare it was to park in this area during the con, I was glad I got a spot at all.
While I should have slept as soon as we got a room, I wanted to blow this second wind getting a run through of the place. Since the other people in our room wouldn't be arriving until late into the night we had plenty of skate time. Nikki took off in her own direction while Chris and I scouted around to people we knew. I first went up to Michelle's room to try on the Gaara costume she made for me. There was a few pins she had to correct but overall the costume was complete. Gaara's gourd is his main prop and without it its hard to wear the costume and have people recognize you so I told her it'd just have to wait until the gourd was done until I wear it. Its scary to think her sewing machine literally tried to kill her (shooting needles into her neck!) in the process of making this costume! One of the guys in her room mentioned a live action River City Ransom being done later that night at the con... but I ended up missing it. The game room was again located on the 2nd Floor but luckily this time you didn't have to go Through the Dealer's room to get there. it was much better laid out this year with dealer's room on one side (by the elevators) and game room off in another. I caught the lead staffer setting up the game room and he said he'd be glad to have my system as well as a few games playing through the weekend. From what it looked like, there only seemed to be DDR and Karaoke Revolution set up... but we later learned there is an entire area that cant be seen from jus looking inside by the door.

Down at the artist alley we caught Lindze at her art table chatting it up with people. Brad was here too and I got to talk to him about possibly working for Turner Communications (Cartoon Network). He also mentioned he had never played Naruto on PS2. Oh man little did he know the extreme differences between GameCube and PS2! They were playing Magical Shopping District Abenobashi out in the open too which was cool. Tim was here "Squatting" a table that someone hadn't arrived to yet. Always good to see Big Daddy here. Sometime later we caught up with our good friend Shawn The Touched who was with his new girl. Nothing really new from White Radish but he did give me info on how to obtain the little-known parody "Dance Dance Utena".

-Getting an easy badge proved a bit troublesome since we hadn't fully scouted the con but there was still time.. the Dealer's Room was jauntingly guarded but it wouldn't be long before the orange suits would wear down-
Chris and I chilled out in the lobby. Someone had left their program book (not program schedule unfortunately) and a can of half-eaten pringles. A blessing! Emily showed up and we chatted a bit. Malcolm and Parnell were eating here too and he was really happy I had brought DreamMixTV & a 4 player adapter since nobody else thought to bring that game for PS2. Anna called earlier saying she had a really rough plane trip but I couldn't find her in the lobby. Turns out she was just around the corner on the sofas the entire time. We went by her and talked for a bit while she waited on her hotel roommates to call her back. They missed each others calls a few times but somehow we bumped into her going to the room. She put her stuff off and then we headed across the street to... (Ba Da Bap Bap Baa) 24-Hour McDonald's! Despite being a TWO storied Mc Donald's.. there was no playground or ball pit... just two stories of tables to eat at.

After eating I was pooped, so I slammed down and took a power nap in the room. At least 6 times I woke up to my phone ringing with people telling me they'd either be late, CLIFF calling to "check up" on us, or people saying they just arrived at the con. Not sure what it was really... maybe Naruto calling me but I woke up and went with Chris to the game room and got to set up my PS2 and Naruto. Everyone loved it, we even got Naruto cosplayers going at it in the game. Right next to our section was TWO Pop'n Controllers TWO IIDX controllers, Eye Toy, some DDR, some SNK/Capcom, and even Karaoke Revolution on the big screen! The game room was definitely impressive this year! Malcolm and I had a 4 player match on Dream Match Heroes using nothing but the barbie-style character. it was so funny "sunday's best" versus all the other outfits and we even played in the dollhouse level, but it got violent because anyone whose played the game knows her character can be Brutal!

Lufia, Bee, and I made the alcohol run midday. There was no way I'd lose my parking spot so we hoofed it to the underground mall. I gotta say, this area of town looks completely different every time I visit.
the first time, Katsu 9 I was with Jian on rollerblades, posing with spraycans for jet set radio pictures, it was really nice outside and kinda windy. the second time with max and holly in nearly 4 feet of snow. basically a winter wonderland with igloo cars and ice all over. this year it was back to normal with mild snow patches here and there, kinda dark and dreary. anyway, the only place selling any liquor was a convince store. no hard liquor of course, so we got girly drinks and a TON of beer. the largest bulk we could carry. walking back, I carried it over my shoulder like a boombox. a few cosplayers saw it and gave "the nod". some asking what room we were in, haha.

getting a room party together didn't take much. we started on the beer by doing -shotguns- and other got drunk quick drinking games. I invited a god lot of people and the first to show up were Max, Holly, and some other friends of theirs. I did my beer con thing with a coffee mug as always. The room was pretty well packed which was cool, but we eventually got low on alcohol so I called people up to see what else was going on.
Lindze and Twinkle appeared from out of nowhere as I was going down the elevator. They weren't even staying in our building but they we here and they found someone's room to party crash in. Turns out it was Schu and her friend's room. SO many people were here! Mel, Cristi, Twinkle, Duncan, Fifi, Jen, Paige, Lindze, Brad, and to my surprise Angela! Angela and I hadn't seen each other since Expo years ago and we were so glad to have met up (surprisingly) again at an east coast con. She said these kinds of room parties and party hopping never happen on the west coast. I had my video camera on me so I just kinda sat back and recorded everyone acting funny. The footage is so loud though you can barely hear what anyone is saying.
Hotel security eventually came a'knocking and told us to go to our rooms or leave the hotel. I volunteered my room so everyone got together and followed me. Unfortunately Zack and his friend had already gone to sleep and Bee was near unconscious in bed. "Theres gay guys sleeping here Mappy!" which meant no more party at this hotel. This lead to us going back to the con (there's a con??) to be loud there.

The dance sucked again but none of us went to that. we were all outside around the lobby talking to people, taking pictures, shouting out the Chapelle show joke of "Im Rich Biatch!" at everyone around us. Jen and Lindze even sang some lines from Buffy The Musical! Derek, Alisa, Lionel and some others mingled with us too. Julie and Justing seemed kinda out of place here since they didn't know anyone and I myself started feeling outcasted as all of the people I knew had gone to bed so we called it a night and went back to our room.

Next morning cleanup went well. since we had gotten cases of beer, they served well for trashcans. Nikki even got her foot stuck in one trying to smash beer cans down into them. Half past noon we were packed and ready to leave after a short sweep through the dealer's room and gameroom. I had trouble getting my dualshock back for some reason. they wanted to do a complete game inventory to be sure everyone got my stuff but Malcolm backed me up telling the staff exactly what I brought. I caught nikki at some giant gothlolita picnic going on in the 2nd floor lobby and told her we were ready to go. Just before we left we heard sirens and saw two firetrucks and an ambulance pull up to the con entrance. The last time I saw this kinda thing was at Ohayocon 2 where Tikki passed out, so we stuck around to see if it was anyone we knew. It turned out to be just some guy from the hotel who had what was rumored to be anthrax or some sort of chemical accident. Pretty scary but we left right after that.

For the trip back I once again took the helm and did the driving while nikki and Bee watched fear & loathing twice and pirates of the Caribbean. two hours into the trip I passed a sign saying "Atlanta". I thought, well, it cant possibly be Atlanta, Georgia; we're way way too far from that. So I just backtracked the way we came. The trip drug on and on and by the time we were around the S Carolina border I saw on a map that by taking that mysterious Atlanta exit that I could have saved a whopping THREE hours of driving time. oh man. We made it to nikkis house and slept in her living room, which made a scene by getting a wake up call of "You Scared the Hell Outta Me" from her mom. she thought since Bee had a shaved head that we were some kinda criminals or something. classic! We met up with joey for breakfast at ihop and even got to see kate at chuck e cheese. It was a nice get together in atlanta but we still had a good ways to go before hitting jacksonville. I bought a few more dvds for the final leg of the trip and let Bee do the last part of driving.

It was a great adventure. A great help that we had a portable DVD player for the car ride but having your own hotel room has a nice feel to it. Katsu once again did not fail to disappoint with friends and parties. The layout of the hotel was better this year with gameroom and dealers room separated. No snow which made travel much easier of course. Katsu will always remain one of my favorite cons and I hope to come back again another year.

waffle house
boiled peanuts
parking garage
"Horse Yaoi"
"Pedro The Gaydro"
gameroom popn battle
brad turnerjobs.com
"We're Here, We're Queer, We're Drinking All Your Beer"
who is SHE? (nikki)
Outcast isnt the right word, but its the first to come to mind
Vomit Paint isnt the right word, oh wait.. yes it is!