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| MOMOCON 2005 Just got home from crappy rainy weather but MAN my second going on 3rd wind is still kickin'. Started the day, tired as hell from previous nights Guitar wolf concert which lasted until 4am. I woke up around 9ish and packed up all my bemani games and ParaParaParadise. I couldn't find my camera the night before but this morning I realized it was still at Ellys from the other nights party. so I stopped there on the way and WOW Elly's Tsunade was finished, and looking Smokin' hot! Elly was judging the cosplay in place of Yaya so she asked me to find out when shed need to be there. I arrived at the con around 11, parked in Employee of the Month spot and unloaded my gear. they NEEDED and extra body as PenguinMan was the only person really scheduled for the Rhythm Gaming room, and a few other college guys helping out. Setup the tv and games and walked around a bit. The convention area was set up very well, being at a college and all. There were three Main floors in the first area. Gaming and dace at the top, with a panel room kinda snuck in out of the way. the ground floor had registration/info, and the lower level had DDR machines, lounge, and others. in another section there was the artists alley, and further along was live action, two more panel rooms and the dealers room. All in one convenient area, and easy to find your way around. though some room names were confusing, there was plenty of signs to guide the way. Caught long-time friend of friend Aimée in the dealers room and we got talking for a bit. I hadn't seen her in nearly umm... 3 years and all of the friends between us had broken up or gone separate ways. it was great she still remembered me being that we only met once. Her and I hung out for awhile and I gave her the "tour" of my rhythm gaming room. she picked up PopN pretty quick as she played it in japan but the rest of the games have a pretty steep learning curve. I offered to grab PenguinMan some food since he'd been watching the room most of the day so I said bye to Aimée and headed out to get something to eat. I tried my best to find the Arby's he mentioned but the street by Varsity was under construction. McDonalds was my best bet as I could get there taking the college roads. This is one thing that kinda bothered me is that being at a downtown college there really isn't much to eat or places to get to unless you have a car. There's maybe a few places within walking distance but its still a pretty hefty hike. the McDonalds lady kept calling me ma'hm at the drive thru and acted all surprised when I pulled up. she gave me a medium to large upgrade as apology; score. Chilled in gaming room for awhile showing people how PPP and some other games were played. off and on I'd swing by artists alley and other rooms to see what else was going on. Ko and crew showed up, and shortly after Inu and the HAAS gang. Karissa was going to be in a WebComic panel so most of us went to that. I only caught a few minutes of it but it was funny how they had similar stories and traumas resulting from making comics. Some such as people they knew in real life asking to be drawn into their comic but when they are, its something compleeetly different usually funny. Also discussions about different styles of drawing, which wacom tablets to use and whatever else. Elly, Fuji, Ivy, and Ben showed up. there was a small fiasco about her Samba Maraccas. the only dreamcast I knew hooked up was a barely played one in the console gaming room. nobody had been playing it then but they were now. it wouldn't really make sense to put it in that room as the other games volume would drown it out but there wasn't a DC in the rhythm room. Mole apparently brought a DC with him but once we got it out to play... we realized.. the game... was NOT in the Case. Ivy was shocked and crushed all at once. If I had known earlier that morning I would have brought my Samba 2000 and maracas. Sunday she wouldn't be able to make it either, bleh! Another panel I caught the majority of was the Local Anime Clubs panel. Lothar and Beach were there from UGAnime, MediaPlay anime club representative, and con head Jes was there too. The panel discussed different things they do, troubles with liscencing issues and other things they do in their area to try and promote anime and fandom. Each club had their own benefit such as getting 10% at anime/manga stores for being a club members. They also talked about each group has viewings ranging from a small TV in a back corner room to getting access to a college's full on theatre to show anime. It was informative and funny at the same time how the clubs compared themselves. Hung out with Ko, SQ, and a few other /b/tards for awhile once Bee showed up. We actually had maybe two people show up when they head us quoting 4chan saying they were fans of the image-heavy twisted site. We got a good group together in the lobby couches and made it into an almost panel by putting notes up reading "4Chan". Ko had this low-carb beef jerky too so we munched on that and eventually went to get more food at Quizno's. Getting there was awkward as it was back on North Ave and I got turned around twice. not to mention my StationWagon was fully packed with Ko riding in the far back compartment. Mole gave me some money for a chicken meal so instead I just got a reg sized Chicken Carbonara at Quiznos. We talked more about 4chan and plans on what do do for the site's April Fools joke. The notorious prank was that for one day the site would contain an image board specifically for furries, titled /fur/. By posting furry pictures, you and your IP will be permenately banned from 4chan! Needless to say, the plan went off extremely well and a lot of sickos got banned from the site by falling for the 1 day mousetrap. Fridays aren't so bad anymore! Went back to the con and lounged about. The predance was finishing up and I was hearing something through the staff about them needing a DJ and equipment. Luckily Fujikoma resident DJ Inubito was in the hizzouse so I grabbed him and the con head Jes and arranged a last minute DJ fix. James was almost on the verge of leaving the con right before that because Jawaboy had to get back to Dallas or whatever. There was still some time before the dance room would be ready so we walked around the con some more and bumped into Heather (my MTAC Savior!), this girl who heard the name "Mappy" and recognized it from Fujikoma. She knew the site through Ichi and was surprised to hear more of us now live in Atlanta. Amazingly she turned out to live in the county right next to me! The original DJ for the dance actually did show up and he turned out to be the same guy running the AMVs so he had a good selection of DDR mixes and anime songs on his external hard drive. Before the dance I grabbed a few of my Hardcore and D & B mp3s from that car to help out. We started the dance by just letting WinAmp do all the work, but the buildups and fadeouts didn't go so well. He had a generic mixer program on his laptop so James and I tried things out with that and the songs faded nicely. It was a true LIVE mix as we nabbed whatever mp3s we could and mixed them in one at a time live, which made this DJing pretty exciting. Through the night we got some pretty sad requests. One girl, while being a really cute redhead, wanted us to play some Final Fantasy song..and.. not the remixes. We would have easily mixed in some SquareDance or BackMages but she wanted us to play original slow songs, uck. Another prick wanted trip hop songs like PhisherSpooner and other junk that we didn't have or cared to play at a "Dance" and he started arguing with us about Electro music or something. Not even an hour into the dance I swear we got at LEAST 5 requests to play sandstorm. The crowd was dwindling away so ya know what... we did what we had to do; play ultra-trendy-overplayed Darude SandStorm. The crowd was back and while we had them in we let all the silly anime kids all get what they wanted, Hamasaki & DDR Songs.. all night long. wheee! Elly was talking about hitting up IBA for some late night korean food but I was still staffing so I was gonna stay the night. She had some really cute Naruto friends all with her now, one of them lost her shoes and asked me to turn the lights on at the dance to find them . Instead I went about Saw-style flashing my camera around places and see if it showed up. They turned up underneath some table. I offered her Sakura friend some rice and veggies they were giving out to con staffers. It was Good too, and warm. The con staff room actually had a good assortment of snacks and coolers of soda to have so that was convenient. The dance wrapped up around 2ish and I headed home. The next morning I woke up as if it was still Saturday and sleep didn't even occur. Bright and early and off to the con I went but things were Very different. As if everyone had depleted and the only people there were staffers. I caught Lindze, Danny, and Jenny as I walked in the con and they were setting up their spot in the dealers room. Game room had only 1 or 2 people and not as many cool controllers around (the Arcade IIDX Turntables were brought in by MaXxParanoia). The day went by with hardly anyone around. Even the panel rooms from what I saw were pretty empty. The only real event I caught was the "Project.D" series of music videos done by Ko, SQ, and 5. I called hoping they would make the showing of their AMV but just got there -just- after it played. I grabbed a few people (Naruto Girls) and we asked what they thought, and the guy running it definitely said they'd have a spot in Anime Hell. A good showing I'd say with a funnier reaction than AWAs. The closing of Sunday was kind of a drag. It had been raining pretty bad most of the evening but it got to the point there was no way I'd be able to run my TV, PS2, and games to the car without getting soaked, so I stayed in for the closing recap of the con. Someone had setup a slideshow of pics they took as well as a closing/opening credits video that showed all of the staff members. It was a kickback for all of the staffers who worked hard this weekend and we all got laughs over some of the pictures people took like some of the cosplays or just funny expressions on peoples faces in the pictures. I drove PenguinMan home since it was still raining then came home and typed all of this out. 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