WED
just getting off a plane from japan, my jet lag was totally awkward. i was wide awake from being on a plane for so long, yet tired as all hell from being awake 27 hours. Elly and Nikki picked me up and we went back to Nikkis house. Emuko and Jen showed up and they took me to finally eat some American Food after being in japan for a week. what better place than the WaHo (waffle house!). so much grease and meat and oh grits! most of the night we all stayed up finishing (starting?) costumes for the con. I stayed over at Elly's that night and while we both tried to just stay awake all night sleep deprivation finally kicked in and we were GONE.
Elly had to catch a plane the next morning so i went back to Nikkis again. we figured since the van trip would be so long, we should stock up on snacks. we went out and got some chips, milk, vanilla coke, cold cuts, cereal minis, and whatever else. we also went by and i picked up a brand new memory card for my camera. so i was going from 8 megs (98 pics) to 128 megs (1,400 pics). the upgrade was SO cool. so all that night i was taking random pics of everyone without a second thought on how much memory i had left. MagiWord came by with Emuko that evening and we stopped off at some Mexican restaurant. food was good but the place looked weird and played some really annoying spainish music. funny that we joked so much about it though.
D finally arrived late that night and was already tired from his day at work. We were kind of worried that he would be able to drive so far since he'd been awake since 6am that morning. we had planned for SO much to do in the car. we had games, DVDs, battle royale, other stuff but one prblem. the van could only give so much power. so the ps2 was out. just turning the thing on was too much for the battery. so we tried the TV. tv worked. but once we turn on the vcr... Bzzzt. too much power. we were stuck with no electronics. Power naps were the only thing that kept us from going insane! our snacks really didn't come in handy much either. the milk leaked into the cooler and got everything milky. and none of us felt like sandwiches. i can go on about the trip there but ill just summarise it in one word: DEATH.
What seemed like weeks later we finally arrived at Kevin Bolk's house. all of wanted nothing more than to just shower off and get to the con. Kevin drove us to the hotel we would be staying at (Rennisance) which was about 4 blocks from the convention center. Emuko had met someone on LiveJournal who was willing to let us crash with him. none of us knew him or his real name so we were taking a chance with this. We couldn't get ahold of him and the hotel wouldnt let us check in until a certain time anyway so we just chilled at the lobby. Gabby showed up and talked with us while we were waiting. We just put most of our stuff in storage until later.
Emuko and i went to scout out the con while we waitied for the hotel to let us check in or we could get hold of the Livejournal guy. Hex was here now and we had him show us around the con. We found SDMacross who was pretty exited to meet all of us. he was heading towards the videogame room where i wanted to go anyway. he had a couple of power strips and cable with him so im guessgin he was hellping staff in the room. somehow it managed to sneak all of us in Free without badges because they were distracted by all of the stuff he was carrying. whee.
Game room was awesome! all dance games (DeeDeeArr, ParaPara, IIDX, and even PUMP, yes; PUMP) were lined up around the walls and console games were lined up on many many tables throught the room. there was even a 6 slot SNK machine here too. great sound on all of the games and everyone was playing. there was even a networked PC game section with warcraft 3 and Tribes going on. as we left the game room some staffer asked us for our badges. note; as we LEFT the game room. man, the guy grabbed me by the shirt too. what did he want? for us to go back IN the game room until we got badges? we just wanted to scout the place out really,, geezus. we shrugged him off and went on our way. couldnt find any other rooms here. 3-4 floor convention centers are really confusing unless you have a map.

Danny T had a room here where some people were staying and he more or less let us use it for storage until we found the LJ guy. Elly was already here. Nadia and her boyfriends were in this room too. it felt SO good to shower off here and get rid of the "van" smell. Emuko got ahold of the LJ guy eventually and went with Nikki to his room to see it was just him and his friend. He was a slender asian guy and his black friend with a room all to themselves so they were very cool in letting us share the room for only $10 a night. they werent fanboys either. just video gamers who liked to joke about stuff and had extra room space.
Nikki was in her Moogle girl costume now so we went to the convention center. place wasn't extremely crowded but seemed pretty busy. the badge line was fairly long though. the price for this con was pretty steep so we figured we'd just get a 1-Day Saturday badge since the cosplay was the only thing to look forward to. it was still a hefty $35 and they said since we bought a Satrday badge and it was Friday to leave the convention center right after. psshaw! after you buy the badge you get it laminated. well on our badges there was a sticker reading "Sat Only" so why get it laminated like that? we tore off the stickers, but to no avail as underneath it stood a big riiipp mark showing we had tampered with it. eventually we needed to get that fixed. Nearly got into the Dealer's room with it since the 1st line of staffers didnt say anything but the second and final lines caugt me on it, asked why it wasn't laminated then looked to see the sticker missing "Oh no. NO we cant have this. c'mere!" i took off after that. Sometime later that day i met up with a friend working registration from the now-extinct ddrcolumbus who hooked me up with a special "Exclamation!" badge. i had no idea what it meant and still to this day have no clue what it means but it got me into anything i wanted all weekend long. thanks man!! Nikki was now looking for her cosplay group to rehearse with so i split off and looked for people. Found Nac, Neal, Jeff, Twinkle, and some others in Battle Royale costumes. Then saw Elfeater and Sung. Elfy had made an awesome Funewherl costume from Phantasy Star Online. even had the hair too! Got birdeye view pics of the MenInBlack group, saw Celine, Ollie,and more people. ah! but then i met Noki/Anna. she was wearing the same costume i wore at A-kon. it was another Gao cosplayer and MAN did she do a good job. all the way down to the spiked knuckles it was really great! we started talking and hung out for awhile. caught Cybele, Sandrad (sara, ok?!), and their friends all going to eat so we joined in. the skywalk from the convention center connected to the plaza of restaurants was nice. i needed to find an ATM badly though. i already borrowed money from Nikki to pay for my badge and the room so i needed cash right away. i still had enough even though Japan totally drained my account. while looking for a place to eat i caught the Koreans Canasian and Carolina as well as more E_P people all sitting together to eat. the bad thing about a con held at a convention center rather than a hotel is that its near impossible to keep track of anyone. everyone was staying at the Hyatt! Shoot, Noki was staying at the Holiday Inn which was right next to the convention center. i really need to plan ahead for this con! We ate Johnny Rockets burgers with Cybele and friends and talked (suprisingly! no, really) about anime and videogames. Caught Hquu as he was leaving. i think he was sitting with some staffers or a group of con heads.
The "Dance" was about to start and while i wasn't all that exited seeing as it was on carpeted floor in an open hallway, i went anyway with Elly. some people there were Really getting into it! Raver Otakus everywhere with glowsticks and bboy skills. it really really smelled though. Max, Val, and Hex! went down to the main lobby where we tried recruiting people for FightClubDodgeball. I found Tania here with some of her friends too. For awhile i just laid on the middle of the floor talking with Elly and Nikki killing time, looking for anyone holding a room party. nothing man. we really didn't want to head back to the room and wake anyone so we looked to see if anyone else had a room available. The Beer-chan trio girls offered a place to crash at their house but we had no ride there, so it was back 4 blocks to the Renissance. The LJ guy was still awake watching TV with his friend. they were nice enough to let Nikki and i have our own bed and his friend slept in a chair. really cool.

SAT
Got up early (for a con) and caught the Dealer's Room just as it was opening. very very spacious. like two full-sized gymnasiums. more like a giant wharehouse. i caught the San-X booth and got a Beer Chan plush before they sold out, and, well, that was pretty much the only full priced thing i bought. there was a Japan booth with travel brochures and documents that i looked over and talked to the lady about since i had -JUST- come back from there. RedOctane booth was full of ripoffs. Oni on ps2 for $30? egads! all the other videos and CDs were full priced as well. no HK or EverAnime stuff here. Another booth was giving away posters if you bought the AhMyGoddess movie which was cool, but there wasn't annything special if you bought OtakuNoVideo DVD so i passed up. one booth had FREE DOUGHNUTS which totally rocked. they were selling VCDs of their documentry titled "Otaku Gone Wild". it was only $5 so i got it. but mainly because they had FREE DOUGHNUTS. i couldn't resist. The Pioneer/Bandi booth was impressive. very large with a lot of promotional goodies, still not impressive as their booth at Expo but impressive nonetheless. Another videogame booth was selling games at "Name Your Price" so i picked up PS2's Stepping Selection for $20 just because it was there. Noki and Hayley were in the Dealer's Room in their Animal Magnetism costumes so i hung with them a little while, but got bored and headed to the game room. Most of the morning i went around several games and played PuyoPuyo4, IIDX 6th Style, and a few fighters here and there. I kept passing by DDR to see if i knew anyone but then Meghan caught me and was really exited to see someone she knew there. i could have Sworn i had seen her earlier, but Meghan never goes to any cons outside South Florida so i didnt think it was possible. but thats cool that she made it.
Noki and i are both fans of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 so we wanted to catch the Mystery Anime Theatre 3k panel which was really funny. they joked about old anime and had the puppets and everythign there. but unfortunately it turned out that NONE of them were actually from the real show and it was just a fan-made idea. totally dissappointing. =/ Saw Nac, Maryssa, Elfeater, and Cyril in the main lobby all getting pics in their awesome costumes. Maryssa wanted to see the game room so we went there and she got to play IIDX....in her Belldandy costume! it was pretty funny! a lot more people here recognized duncan in his .Hack costume since its a really popular game compared to anime.
Caught Majors near the dealers room with some other WEDOCA members just sitting around. He asked where all the cute girls at this con were and right then Mel showed up in her Otakon mascot costume. SO CUTE! We went to look for people in the Art Room and saw Max & Hex there, as well as Kaveman, Yaya, Erika, Gideon, and Lionel. She was lookign for Terry Chu so we went off to the cosplayer photoshoot thing located by where the cosplay was going to be. Carolina, Kat, Canasian, and a few others were here that we got to talk to.

Canasian and i took off to go watch the ParaPara panel. We showed up right after the interviews and got to get pics with Yoko Ishida. The ParaPara actual routine daces came next but they had audio difficulties so it got real dumb and we left. DJParanoia was here and we talked about Japan & PopNMusic. he was hosting a DDR tournament which he wanted me to cameo in. I would have had something to show, but someone disabled Freeze arrows on Candy so whatever i did wasn't all that impressive. but they needed more people to actually do freestyle so i helped somewhat. BleuNabby was here with the ddrcolumbus guy recording IIDX 6thStyle videos. man, i need to work on 7-Key, badly!
Cosplay had already started and suprisingly half the place was still empty. so i got semi decent seats and watched most of it. Now i have NO clue how things went backstage but i really enjoyed the cosplay. everything seemed to go well, all actors did a great job with their lines and skits, even the kids! most were really funny, aside from the constant CHAIR refrences. i missed the Final Fantasy skit, but stayed through at least the first 30 or so entries.
That night. Anime 54. BEST.PARTY.EVER.

SUN
sunday we were all drained from the con and everything but in order to get home at a decent hour we didnt have any time for the con at all and had to get up and out early. Everyone seemed to be taking long but it didn't matter. the Van wouldn't start. so we had to push-start-choke it. after two tries it got going and we were set for another grueling 14~16 hour drive. Rain hurt us the first hour of the way. it was refreshing since it was so hot but it brougt traffic to a near stop. Emuko and i slept through 2 states on this one. No PowerNaps, and Nikki listened to J-Rock.
Sometime after D and i dropped the girls off we pulled into a giant parking lot of some building. mind you, it was nearly 4am at this time, but a Stone Cold Steve Austin came up telling us to get off of the private property, it was really freakish too because he came out of bloody nowhere! but we made it back safe, hallucinating, and tired as all hell.

-GOOD- Enormous videogameroom, great cosplay, excellent convention center
-BAD- the videogame room announcer (Shut The F*ck Up!!!), Baltimore street bums & sewer rats, the anime played, certain staffers, prices, walking
-UGLY- fanboys & fangirls with the signs taped on to them reading: "Will Yaoi For Money!" "Kiss on the cheek for $1" "Have You Seen [insert bishonen or kawaii girl name here" and the ever-popular "Hug Me"

-people i never, no, not even ONCE saw who was at this con: Lindze, West Coast Jenny, Christy
-people i really didnt expect to see but happy they came:
Meghan
Website Mike
Nadia
Basil
Majors + WEDOCA crew
Elfeater + Sung
Gabbi
Ren
Moses
Duane Johnson
Shawn The Touched

-quotes-
"Hey can i get your picture?"
*cosplayer turns around*
Cyril: "Wait, nevermind. Keep walking"
(EDIT -from Cyril- i wanted to taka picture of the cool unsconscious walking gait he had.)

Cyril: "Oh look! Wheelchair cosplay!"

EDIT- from Cyril: Thank you for the cherry chapstick. i will never forget it! seriously! no matter how much i will try to forget. [he asked if i had lipstick, i said i had chapstick, but i said it was Cherry so it was just as good]

"Trunks totally changed my opinion of DBZ!" ~Carolina [there was this hot Asian guy cosplaying as Trunks]

Duncan on fansview [Nac's belt for his .Hack costume kept coming undone no matter how much fabric glue or tape he used. fansview got a pic of him just as he was "adjusting"]

"The iron ejaculated on me!" ~Nadia

Anime54- Iris, Cat, Max, Duane, Tikki, Rob, Dietrix Bros, Steve, Heather, Steve Lin, Hex!, Emu, Nikki, Scott Frazier, Shirtless Guy

"Busterkids.com! Fujikoma.com! How did that get there?!" ~Max [free promotions in the art room ^_^]

"Free Doughnuts!" [the Otaku gone Wild VCD booth]

Max's Frog Dance [you had to be there]

"Swordchucks Yo! Swords swords swords!" [out of nowhere Nadia and i started quoting 8-Bit theatre in downtown Baltimore. a Fighter cosplayer started singing the Swords song]

Nintendo Boom Box [some guy was walkign around with a miniboombox blaring original NES songs like NinjaTurtles, Megaman, Zelda, and lots more. like 56 of them. i asked to use his idea and he said its ok as long as i give credit. but credit to who??]

Bloody napkin [Major's friend was just sitting around when he saw what looked like a bloody napkin! i took a pic but thats when the camera corrupted. so gross!]

Pizza on escalator [Elly was coming down the escalator from the restaurant she just got pizza at. i made a face, then she made a face and FLOP! pizza went face-down on the side of the escalator. we got pics but the pizza remained there for hours and hours. it would have been funnier if it fell on the steps of the escalator!]

Mel's Ebichu [well not Ebichu but the hamster backpack. everyone who wears or touches it has to make the "eeeeeeeeiiiiiii" hampster sound]

Kave & Mappy [the handshake heard around the world. i had been wanting to find out who this "Kaveman" was]

"Theres Beatmania Everywhere! I see it on projection screen, i see it over there..." ~Majors [Drunk Majors was talking about how they kept moving IIDX around the game room all throughout the day]

Mike Ditka's No Hurt Baseball [a completely wrong refrence now that i look at it. Wedoca was talking about someone just recently getting into newsgroups and downloading every game that becomes available. games like these should just be left, alone]

"7-key?" "I can do...1-Key" Bleu [Bleu was just getting started on Beatmania and no way could pass the hard songs.]

"Wheres Christina?"
"She drowned in a pool of her own blood" ~Kevin

Parker Lulu

"Ok, I counted 15 Lulus so far, no 16" ~Anna [FFX cosplay is totally overdone]

"I'll run away and you wont get any exp!" ~Reno FF7 Dating Game cosplay

Website Mike's middle finger friend [Mike and two friends were hanging out in the lobby. one was nice, the other just well, flipped me off. but he was only joking around. hows That for first impressions?]

Videogame room badge incident [we get in without a badge fine. but leaving i get grabbed by a staffer and demanded i show a badge? he started chasing us too. thank goodness for escalators]

You make a REALLY good Erika Door [Erika amazingly was NOT in cosplay when i saw her saturday night. so she made a great Erika Door cosplay i said]

"You winged him!" ~Yaya [right as Yaya and Erika entered the art room in their angel costumes their wings clipped a convention center guy right in his EYE!]

Silent Bob's Nipple [Val, Max, Hex! and i were walking around talking to people, but as we passed the Silent Bob cosplayer on the escalator, Val grabbed his nipple! he stayed in character even after this!]

You gotta meet Katie "Assmaster" "Boobs" [more stories of Gabbis crazy friend]

Baltimore Rats [Gabbi and i got to see one. them suckers is BIG!]

"theres no videos on IIDX DVDRip? so its basically a simulator then" ~Nac [just a clever observation of IIDX hacked rips]

We can be TWINS! ~Anna Gao [both Anna and i have Gao costumes. we could be twins if we both did it! err...ya]

"Be good, son. dont stay out too late. and dont talk to Allan" ~Gideon [Gideon was talking to the girl wearing the Van costume]

Exit 150A Triangle Quantaco (VA) [just the weirdest exit name ever heard]

Whats that? The drink of the hour. its good! [it was like a fruit punch.... with a Punch!] Portishhead (Ally?)

"I cant go back to my room. theres too much drama waiting for me there" ~Cybele [con drama is scarry! stay away!]

Our Patterns... are very differnt ~Puyo4 guy

Breakdance Royale; Chair killed it

"Awww Dats Mah CarTOON!" ~DBZ local fan [while walking around the restaurant by the Bay, people asked about the convention and costumes. one guy REALLY liked DBZ alot]

6-Slot SNK; i just pooped [its a rare sight to see an SNK arcade machine with 6 games on it. Hex! pooped]

SFIII Premium Disc Centaur costume in hallway [G-chan and some other people had such a huge centaur costume for Shiningforce that they had to construct it in the hallway! this was seen with several other huge costumes]

"justinbaily '20s term. like cope-asthetic" ~Nadia

"Bowser? King Koopa?"~Nadia [we began really indepth conversations about NES games. the JustinBailey code for Metroid was one. her theory is that it means "Just In Bailey" Bailey meaning Bikini, a 1920's term not used anymore. Another debate was the Super Mario bad guy. is the name King Bowser Or King Koopa? and was there a first name? and did anyone debate that King Arthur was his real name?]