Have visited Perfect Spin Off Cosplay since Halloween, 1998.
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Ah yes. Conventions(Events). Why I remember the day....
2005 Anime Expo, July 1-4 Location: Anaheim Hilton and Convention Center, Anaheim, California Thursday: The fun, or lack thereof starts today! As I thought well, since I pre-reg'ed then perhaps I should obtain my badge on the early day! I set out to Disneyland and walk on over to the convention center at 6 PM. I see Jen there and we ultimately decide to stay. The line down in the basement is only 3 turns and "it's moving". Or that's what we thought. We saw Hai, Sara & Emi, Wing down there. 2 hours later and we are about to hit the escalators! YES This must be it! Salvation. NO. Up the escalators and at least another hour of waiting. Arty comes back successful but is smart not to stick around. The line for at con registration was practically non existent. Um, why did I pre-reg? Spend the extra $10 at the door and give me back my 2 hours of my life XD. So we get within 40 minutes of the computers and this nice fellow comes to our corner of the line and asks if we (me and Jen) are together. *hugs Jen* "Why of course we're together!" He then opens up the queue into the at con registration computers and we magically become first in line! That was some saving grace. Of course after I got the badge, I bolted out of there and back to work on Don. Friday: I get a call around 10 AM to find out that Henry's arrived. Then I get a text message from him. He saw Liddos in Kaori. "Wow. Liddos is hot." Damn straight. They're staying in the in Marriot 9046. RNR are staying at the Hilton 8412. I was scheduled for a Chobits photoshoot with liddos before dusk but that didn't happen because of a supply run, sword run, and while I was home, I decided to crank out working on Don. I arrived about 8 ish, too dark for a photoshoot. I was working on the fur collar to Don at the time but as the decoy I was wearing my leather jacket so I masqueraded as Squall for a while. Hand sew heaven. or hell. I did lose my handsewing needle at the Hilton somewhere with all the people I was meeting and the hugs. Saw E! Sana Lionel. Lance was running late so we held rehearsal on 2nd floor Hilton until 10:30. Poor liddos was running all over the place but we got the blocking down! Again, back across the street and drove home after that. Lance would show up at one AM. Saturday: This was my pre-ordained day to spend with Cici on her Vivichan cosplay! Cici and Sherwin were in Hilton 12202, right near the elevator and so convenient! But she forgot her duel disk and needed a shower so we pushed back the 10 AM meet time a bit. That was okay because I checked in with Lance at Hilton 6249 and basically moved all my stuff there. I pretty much finished all the major work needed on Don and was just doing miscellaneous trim type stuff. Cici showed up and it was time to duel! I whipped out my business version Kaiba from 2 years ago that previously had only been seen in Kyle's cosplay.com photoshoot. And Cici was so Chinese <3! Pretty good for someone from Persia ^_^. Sherwin remarked she had a nice bowl cut. I'm so happy on how awesome Vivichan turned out. Cici looked so hot. I brought her a Master Kyonshee and Gyaku Gire Panda. She loves the crazy panda and took most of her pictures with that card. And Sherwin was an awesome photographer. We went outside for about 30 minutes waiting for Sherwin and we met up with Karrie, Maryanne, Rene and a host of others for some quick pictures. Then we went up into the convention center for some l33t photos with Sherwin when he showed up. I tried on some shots with Cici's duel disk and my arm was so hurting after that. Afterwards we went into the dealer's hall to look for Cici's friends. I changed out before Cici due to the heat and went to have my half bag of ranch flavored Corn nuts for lunch. Then back to get all the waivers and turn them in. Then the 5:OO PM masquerade meeting at the Palisades in the Hilton. Henry came for that one. Afterwards we were so starving that we went to eat at Cocos cos Henry remembered their yumminess. We passed Tiffy's to get there down Katella. Had 12 oz ribeye and chicken strips, Henry had quesadilla and tomato roasted chicken. We took home the appetizers in preparation for tomorrow. We went to Lances first thinking that he had a refrigerator but he didn't. Then we went to Liddos because Henry swore they had a refer but couldn't find it. So I took the Samurai Jack sword back and fixed up the blade while Henry continued to work on the hilt. Due to a mini emergency, I had to leave at 9. No parking fee, the attendant said go ahead! I was so out of there. The rest of them would go on to rehearse again and poor Kim would mess up her ankle and shoe, but magically fix it. Sunday: I showed up in the morning to catch up on the Chobits cosplay with liddos that I postponed from Friday. So after parking at the Marriott I head up to that room to find liddos in a frenzied change. I hand sewed some ribbons to her bloomers (wow I'm so lucky). We were Ueda and Baker Chii for about 2 hours and had various shoots with Lionel and AgentSakur9 until Liddos saw too too cute Japanese Katamari cosplayers. So in an instant she rushed back to change and I was free! So over to Lances to put on make up. Instant tan! Too bad it smears over everything. I duck down to Palisades at 3 to pick up our backstage passes. Before I know it 4 PM rolls around and so I pack up all my stuff and head to LP in the convention center. I take 2 bags of Komamura and all my Don stuff. I initially didn't take my cellphone but on retrospect I should have, so I switched phones with Henry for a little while. I waited and waited. MooN*Sync crew showed up little by little. I took a break to put on my moustache and look all "ho ho ho if you don't pay your rent I'm going to tie you up to the train tracks." Finally my Bleach team showed up at 6:30. Just a wince stressful. We all got changed into complete gear. We were introduced to our den mommy Lisa. Henry was in Kon at the time and was all "is it just me or is our den mom cute?" She brought us some granola bars and bottled water. What a sweetheart. iPLAY and AGSMAND showed up in their awesome KH cosplay. They managed to rehearse outside. Bleach crew did one rehearsal back stage but most of the time was spent schmoozing with Maiyu, who snuck in with ReyRey. Managed to watch the iPLAY, Fish Fight skits while waiting. The masquerade ran quite smoothly and before we knew it 45-50 including us at 49 was called up. I managed to watch MS3 from behind the screens and it came out fantastic. There was bit of a snafu trying to get Lance queued up on stage left but it all worked out in the end. Brad the emcee even did the BOHAHAHAHA as we had orchestrated. Right after we completed, we went to take the press photos and then off to do the re-enactment photos with Karrie as our photographer. We nearly finished when Lance was called as winner of Best Individual Craftsmanship! Then he got called again for Best Expert! Go Lance! I suppose the biggest surprise was the Bleach group 49 being called for Best of Show. O_O *disbelief*. I'll believe it when I see it. And sure enough, they got Kon on the hydraulic lift, and to close the masquerade, the Best of Show trophy was presented to us. Wow. just wow. That is the sweetest 10th anniversary anyone could ask for. Awesome cast, awesome skit. Liddos dropped my Spirit Javelin and broke it from all the excitement I'm sure. XD. We took press pictures for the AX Newsletter and then had the mad rush to clean up. I let Al get pictures of everyone else while I was working on clean up. Henry was dying and needed a breather. Liddos, Mich and I did the first run to Lances room to move all the stuff. Kim, Henry and Lance stayed for pictures. On the way down, with my decreased vision, I managed to clock a concrete wall and bruised both knees. Still we made it over to Lances room, and Liddos had to go meet up with friends. So Mich and I went back to rescue the rest. They had made it down to the convention ground level and had Sho helping with bags. I finally am introduced to Sho at the time. We move all the stuff into Lances room, and I go back yet again to find Al, because I promised him pictures. Get that done and finally change out. I sacrificed a room towel to get all that make up off and it still wasn't enough. I basically turned that towel brown hahaha. I got out of there at about 1 AM. Of course no parking charge when I leave. Monday: Henry picked up my Ichimaru Gin shoes from Gina. The crew did a Bleach shoot without me in the morning but were nice enough to do it again in the afternoon. I went to pick up the "random DVDs" and we got box set of Kare Kano (that went to RNR), 1-4 of Pretear (that went to liddos), 2-4 of Nuku Nuku which we made RNR take (but was originally Lances), and then Exlax, errrr Maxlax or something that Henry casually disposed of. I totally forgot to pick up the AX Newsletter like I usually do but I heard many of them were lost. I officially showed up about 2 PM and we got into the Bleach gear for 3 hours of photos and walking around. I was still dark from the night before so I didn't need any new make up. (Even though I thought I washed most of it off). Sho was around to take some pictures for us, very nice. Liddos left early because of the long drive back. By the time we were done it was 5:30 and RNR had to go too T_T. Well everyone basically had to pack up because I had to get Henry to his redeye flight home. I brought over Mataza the Zapper and Insect Knight with Henry for his YGO deck. After we said all our goodbyes, Henry and I quested out for Curry House in Irvine, which he was drooling over for the past month. Wow, so open parking. But nobody home. Foul! Curry House was observing July 4th. Henry was jacked. Knowing that Chinese people don't give a crap about holidays and business is business, we drove down a few blocks over to Sam Woos. That pretty much made up for any disappointment with Curry House. They were open and we were seated immediately. I had a big bowl of congee and jack fruit milkshake while Henry got stir fried noodles, potstickers and Thai iced tea. They brought out alot of food. So much that Henry couldn't finish the potstickers so in a box they went. That was concluded about 6:50 so we had about 10 minutes to get to Kixies and pick up the FMA fabric from last year and then to LAX. That worked out rather well. Henry made a small deposit at Kixies and picked up the bag of fabric for Havok. And also toured the apartment and all of Kixies new belongings recently purchased at AX. I dropped Henry off at LAX 7:50 PM, 10 minutes early. It was overcast but fireworks were still being shot. A very quiet conclusion to a great con. 2005 Cherry Blossom FestivalJapanTown Peace Plaza, San Francisco, California Saturday: Mad YGO trading. Reminded Fee to go to sleep early ^_^
Sunday: Wake up at 6 AM AUGH. Get over to Fee's at 7 and no parking at her apartment T_T. So we drove to a different parking lot and she took me to the airport from there. Such a sweet Fee. Got the A waiting list and I was napping the whole time with my MP3 player chock full of H!P. Arrived at OAK with no difficulties and Rob was there with Liddo and Sarah to pick me up. Rob got us lost on the way to Japantown with about 4-5 U turns but finally we got to the parking lot and we got the best parking spot ever. Right next to the exit and street. I went to check out the area and found out that Tak and Ray were both at the far end of the center where the parade would start so wouldn't be seeing them for a an hour or so. So we all went to have a nice cozy lunch a Misume, one of liddo's fav restaurants. I had a nice bowl of udon and sashimi. Almost as yummy as liddos. Afterwards I went to check out the stage venue and the speakers were a bit outdated but it was a nice open area with plenty of seats. I estimate 200-300 seats with maybe 500 standing room. The girls just finished rehearsal at Stanford and came on over. They had suboptimal parking initially but fixed that later. The parade was just ending and we got the hook ups for all of the equipment ready. The girls were all in costume. Liddos went to get some shaved ice with Sarah. It was a nice bright day and so they did all the costume judging announcements first so the girls got a breather and the performance was pushed back to 3:30 ish. We performed Koi wo Shichaimashita, RNR did a piece from Spirited Away and Smash Bros, and then Renai Sentai Shitsuranger. Everything went off well and Al took pictures of us afterwards. My photos were cut short due to an interview with a Japanese professor of music *_*. So nice to talk to. Got her business card so I hope to hear from her soon. She was up to date on all things Morning Musume. After the performance we all changed out. I retrieved our CD from Japan Video and they had cute plushies and Pocky waiting for us. So nice of them. Kim got an Inuyasha plushy and Mich got Sesshoumaru. I got a chobits rabbit plushy that I subsequently tempted and ended up giving to liddos. She hearts. I gave my .hack keychain to Mich cos I know she'd appreciate it. Dueled with Rob x 2, one with zombie, and one with my proxy Exodia deck. I think I want to build a real Exodia deck now. Horrible. A section of girls went to get food and the others went to have a Death Note photoshoot. 6 PM rapidly approached so Amikins took Hikkles and I back to the airport. There was a wince of traffic but we got there on time. An uneventful flight home and I still had my luggage! Fee picked me up and off to home I went.
Anime Overdose Location: Holiday Inn, San Francisco, California USA Musume had been asked to come to Anime OD to perform. Can't turn that down! Great potential in such a relatively new convention on the circuit. Saturday: Get up at 5:00 AM for flight from SNA. Commuter Alaska Airlines flight, uneventful. Got a call from Amikins for pick up shortly after arrival. Arrived at the location and we were going to park at Whole Foods, but the lot was closed. So parked at hotel. Established contact with Lionel and got a room key for 1513. Turns out that Al wasn't going to stay the night so I swapped. Basically spent the morning with Liddochan. We cruised the dealer's room, she won a DVD from Funimation so I signed up. I checked back later and I won a DVD from Funimation too! I picked FMA 1st DVD. Lydia helped me spike my hair while I helped her with her Tsubasa Syaoran. I got bored and changed into Banban so I could take advantage of the spiked hair. Al was changing between PoT and DoA but got some pictures of it. Changed out and had lunch with Amikins. We had yummy chicken enchilada, mashed yams and stir fry bok choy from Whole Foods. AJ was free so we went on a Date of Destiny as prom Starfire and Robin. That was so much fun. AJ had to be my eyes and adjust my mask every time. Afterwards got ready for Salt 5. Poor mich was so tired and she didn't even finish her costume so she rested after the RNR perf. But turned out they had to go on again with a double encore. Such good performers! Then Salt 5 and completion. I changed out rapidly and they all went on a photo shoot with Kyle. After that, I went out to dinner with moo for burgers and salad. Was supposed to be fries and a shake but we were both health conscious. Came back and loitered for a little bit but retired early. Lionel could not find his jacket! Poor guy. Sunday: Good thing I slept early. Kept on waking up cos the sirens blaring outside. Must be alot of crime in this part of town. Took care of the tip for the room. Muchos gracias to Lionel for the crash space. Tiffy was already putting up Hikkles and I'd just be a burden. Treated Lionel to breakfast. After that I went to move all my stuff to the green room, 2601, changed into Dekaranger, then went down and helped staff the autograph signing session. All the guests were really nice. Marv Wolfman remembered who I was after some prompting. Before I knew it, it was 1 PM and we were supposed to be on. The concert started about 40 minutes late but our microphone worked just fine. Packed up the mics and left them with I couldn't stay very long for pictures and pretty soon, I went back up to 2601 to change out. Then moo accompanied me like a wonderful hostess down Van Ness to the BART station and she actually rode with me to AirBART, where we departed. Made it on time to the airport. Then there was the flight home. >.> yippee. 2004 AniMagic Location: Valencia Hyatt, California Thursday: Kitsy and I fight about 3 hours worth of traffic from Irvine to get her up to Valencia. Duh, we left at 5. Big mistake. Tiffy, RNR were all at the airport and so Kitsy managed to rope in the rooms which were connected to each other! Awesome! We've never had that before. And the rooms were nice! Service excellent! We had requested a rollaway and by the time we got up there they were knocking to deliver it. 228 was the double queen and 230 was the king + rollaway. I decided to stay with RNR this time around and so I wasn't even sure what my room number was going to be. I heard 328, right a floor above the UM rooms. I wasn't sure because.... I went home. Friday: Packed up all my UM costumes (4 of them!) and Roy Mustang for the long trip up to Valencia. Which is still less than the trip to Lancaster so I wasn't really complaining. Traffic was light on the way up this time so it only took an hour. Of course 45 minutes into the ride I had this stunning revelation. WTH are my Roy gloves!?!?!?! Are they with my costume? I don't think I put them there. They were in a different spot. As I made that realization, Fee gave me a call. She was so good <3's that she wanted to try and buy me a pair of gloves to avoid me wearing Kimblee. Of course I phoned RNR about it and they were like "NO KIMBLEE". I bring up Roy and some other stuff and head on up to room 328 which I find to be.... empty X_X. So I came back down to 228 to camp out there for a little bit. Then they tell me, oh! RNR changed rooms to 235. X_X Lucky no one was in 328 after all. Yay! RNR were the best roomies I had! So nice! While I was there I came up with this thing I love to do.... ~bakudan~ and caress whoever, which is what Kimblee does right before he blows someone up. So if one of them is being notty.... ~bakudan~. <3's. And freak them out. Kitsy, I and RNR spent most of Friday morning coordinating the stage, as I found it to be unstable and on the grass. We find out that along the way we get a hospitality suite and free breakfast! @_@ so nice! And our custom UM badges from AM @_@ so nice! The hotel staff came out and moved the stage back on to the concrete that solved the instability problems and taped it up. They also brought a second stair to provide a second exit. At that point, I sent Kitsy and RNR to get breakfast while I address microphone issues. The hotel staff were so nice and sent over their AV guy and hooked DJ Mod up with an additional 2 mics. I talked to the VP of AM who said safety first and that it was no problem! Yay! I was still fixing that up when the girls were done with breakfast and they brought me a blueberry muffin T_T. So sweet. Also addressed the small issue of a rapid change room for during the masquerade. Done. Kix and Fee had arrived and they got hooked up with badges and they checked into their room. We all got ready for FMA so I got into part of Roy, and we take desk/drinking pictures in the room. The rustic desk and lamp were perfect with the phone for Central type pictures. Kitsy got into Hawkeye, Kim into Maria Ross, Mich into Ed, Fee into Al, Ami into Lust, and Kixies into Winry and we all took happy pictures and scene re-enactments. I borrowed Fee's gloves for pictures and made sure that the back of my hand where the logo would be wasn't visible :D. Before I knew it tho, I had to get ready for Chokotto Love performance and photoshoot. That went off so well even tho Hikkles was a little sick. Angela had turned in the CD to Rebecca hours earlier at 3:30. I came down a little bit early and caught opening ceremonies enough to be present for the guest roll call. RNR, Kix and Fee go out and hit up Johnny Rockets for dinner and rush back just in time for the Cosplay Revue. The CL girls were #10 out of about 12 and looked so good with the feathers. That added so much to the performance. After which was a bunch of rehearsals on the stage in the cold weather which worked out pretty well. Poor Hikkles was still sikkles so she had to go home and get ready for some Saturday morning duties before her return. RNR and I manage to get to sleep at a good time. Midnight. Saturday: Wake up and had some angel food cake with RNR. First shoot of the day was Last Kiss, so Tiffy and Kitsy and I took those pictures. By the time that was done, it was lunch time. Tiffy wanted to sell stuff at the swap meet so she stayed there while Kitsy and I ran off to eat at the sushi place that was close by. Their lunch was so good! I was so happy to be able to walk to good yummy food nearby. And good price too. We were treated really well there. We got a call that Annie had come back so I got back into LK and took pictures of Annie to wrap that shoot. Next on my list to get ready was Salt 5 photoshoot, and get packing for all the other nighttime performances. We move into the Country Canyon as it would be our change room for the masquerade. We needed someplace close by. We run up to the fitness center to take Salt 5 pictures with all the equipment. Then we came back down to home base. Everybody was there as well as Jason and Dean. Wayne was out recording the masquerade. We shared that room with the judges who finished their judging in about 15 minutes because they had already done their craftsmanship prior. After 42 entries, and the masquerade proceeding ahead of schedule, Salt 5 goes up. Something was wrong with Mich's microphone so it sounded like some lines were edited out but other than that it was a good performance! Then Maiyu took about 10 minutes + a 2 minute AM staff Zelda skit while we were changing into LK/7A. Due to the mic problems from S5, we held the suspect microphone and LK was performed flawlessly. We took the hit on 7A because we needed all 5 microphones again so whoever had the bum microphone just sang extra loud. That worked out pretty good. After 7A, we had a small farewell ceremony for Kitsy T_T. Flo came up and presented her with a lei too which was nice and Angela had a little speech prepared too. After which we grabbed Maryssa to the stage to demonstrate JKM's main dance. Then we performed the UM version of JKM which was totally fun! The 7A photoshoot followed but I went with RNR to pack up all our stuff from the room as we'd be checking out tomorrow. RNR managed to get food from Johnny Rockets again because they were starved. The rest of the girls were having a post AM celebration so I went to their room for a bit. Helped Kitsy pack alot of her stuff while the other girls left for JB's. We eventually joined up right in time to order. Kitsy and I split something since all the portion sizes were huge. Dean whipped out this nice bottle of almond champagne and it was very tasty. Fee came over to talk to us and she was all yay for being antisocial haha. Kitsy and I left early since we were tired and wanted to help finish packing for her impending trip back to Hawaii. I managed to stay up and hit the room party in 208 and dueled Hai for about 5 rounds until I couldn't keep my eyes open. His deck will suck once he adds in Exiled Force. I finally went to bed at 3 and O_O, RNR were still up. But not much afterwards. *crash* Sunday: Icky! RNR's panel was at 9 X_X. Due to some icky schedule changes, hardly anyone showed up. I was busy getting stuff ready for the UM panel at 1, like writing it on the board and securing the room. RNR and I did a quick photoshoot of HHJ, and then moved all our stuff out of the room by 11. We were all waiting in the lobby to say goodbye to RNR T_T. The panel started at 1:10 PM and wrapped within an hour. It went well except the microphone for the karaoke go round didn't work, and Lionels computer was missing the codec for the HHJ video. Good thing I came prepared with back up videos so we sang C!NP. After the panel we gave Kitsy her farewell presents and Tiffy a thank you present T_T. Both girls were near tears. After the panel I was ready to go toodles but I managed to catch Kitsy before she flew out T_T. Anime Expo, July 2-5 Location: Anaheim Hilton and Convention Center, Anaheim, California Friday: I am the commute king! I came over to park at the Marriott at about 2 PM. "Parking lot full" So I swing over to the Hilton "Parking lot full" OMG WTF BBQ. So where did I park? Disneyland. I took the Mickey & Friends Tram to the main gate to find out about the second godsend tram. The Lion King tram makes a stop right outside the ACC! Woot! That saves me like 20 minutes of walking time. Obviously couldn't bring anything along prop wise with all that transport so no fan, no costumes. They all just stayed in the car. Made contact with Rice and Ramen (RNR). So I decided with my pre-registration slip, I'd just waltz in and get my badge. Kitsy got such an awesome location at the artist alley! Right up in front. And no admission needed to go there. But registration.... 2 hours later, for having been Pre-Reg/Pre-Paid, I finally get my badge. Head back over to Kitsy's to trim off the excess junk off my page and make it transportable. Now it's 4 PM and I'm in normal clothes, I go to RNR to inspect their costumes and book. Today was talking day as I met up with the likes of Yaya, Kyle, Sarah, Lillyxandra, Haruka, Ming, and a host of other regulars. Hai was prancing around in Hughes with his perfect goatee. About 5 PM, Kitsy was packing up and assigned me to go find Twinkle so she could get her wig. I told her I hadn't seen Twinkle all day but would try my best. I go cruise the dealers room and see Darryl, Gina, Wayne and some other friends. 15 later I see a cute Asian girl next to Lindze. I take a chance and tap her shoulder. Twinkle turns around and stares and I say, Jackie Chan. :D Twinkle only knows me by my LJ icon which is Jackie Chan but yay! I got it right. I meet Jeff and we head back to her room in the Marriott to hopefully retrieve the wig. She doesn't remember if she brought it. Another gamble. She wins tho as she manages to find it. And just at that time, Kitsy calls. Woo! She's still in the artists alley so we all head back and the wig works! Awesome! After I completed that mission, I get a call from Darryl to go eat at Claim Jumper. But almost right after I get a call from Tiffy to go to meet her and Chris at Disneyland. I come back and see Tiffy on route. So we walk across the ACC to take the Lion King Tram back to meet Chris at the A of California. We were all starving and went to try and go on some rides but due to the huge lines went to eat at the Boardwalk. Tiffy had a craving for a cheese dog so she went over there while Chris and I ate at Pizza Oom Mow Mow. I had my typical chicken fusilli and he had a hawaiian pizza. Of course Tiffy made it back and finished before we even got our food. But then we got our food and she was thirsty from eating potato chips so she went to get a beer. Irvy and I decided that beer goes best with delectable lightly frosted cookies. So in the time it took Tiffy to get a simple beer, we almost finished dinner. Tiffy got a bright green toxic looking cup. Dean met up with us and we went to California Screaming. Tiffy managed to wash out her cup so she could keep it for the dance. I left early when Karrie called but when I arrived at her room, it was just full of drunken Mexicans (Matt). We chilled for a bit but then I went back to RNR's room for some costume questions. After that bail out at 10 PM. Saturday: Early in the morning, get a call from Henry "Hey, I'm not sure if I can make it, July 4 looks pretty booked. Even so, I can't get white hair spray because they won't let me bring aerosol on a plane" So I go hunt down all around town for white hair spray. The Halloween store was sold out X_X. Luckily my second stop, a hair salon, had cans for $3. Today I managed to come in around 1 PM and parked in the Hilton as Tiffy let me store all my stuff in their room. So nice! And they have a big patio. I lugged all my FMA + trenchcoat + fan over to room 5245 when I get a call that it's actually 5241. A room is a room! Set up camp in the corner. Since Tiffy was getting ready into Kanoe I changed into Funeral Roy Mustang for lack of anything else better to do. We went out for some pictures, I made contact with Lance. Al was around and was awesome in helping me get some pictures. I met up with Hikkles who went to Stellas to point out stuff. I wanted to change out so we headed back to the room. The tentatively scheduled rehearsal at 5 PM was a flop as RNR had a performance @_@ and Kitsy was still in the artist alley. She also had a dinner to go to, so couldn't come afterwards. But Bucca time was coming up at 6 PM so we invited Lance along. Hikkles and Tiffy had changed into Love Machine and thank goodness they didn't get their costumes dirty from all the pasta. The dinner was good. And only cost $16 a head. After Bucca we all hung out at Tiffy's room and checked out the fireworks. I hung out with Hikkles and we both had to go home we I walked her out. I got the room key for tomorrow tho! So nice and convenient! Yay! Did tell Lance however that Henry still hasn't shown up. Informed him about the odds of this gamble and that it was a decent gamble. Lance wasn't so sure about that. Sunday: 5 AM. Get a buzz on the cellphone "Oh hey, I got on the plane, see you at 11". In the morning, I paint the head to the staffer on a McDonald's bag and I get on over to LAX, Terminal 4, Departures. After 2 trips around finally pick up Henry and head off to LAX with a small detour at Burger King. We arrive at AX around 12 and park at the Marriott. Since I have the room key I was able to get into room 5241 with no problems. Tiffy and Annie and Hikkles were all getting ready for the Peace photoshoot. Henry and I went to work on the Staffer. Lance was nice enough to represent the group for the 2 PM mandatory masquerade meeting. 2 PM rolls around and I meet up with Kyle for the Peace girls photoshoot. 2:15 and I run back into the room to get changed into Roy with Phone. 2:30 and I'm out right on time for the ACP photoshoot. Things were looking a bit bleak as it was just me and RNR but in about 10 minutes they gathered a nice crowd and Al and Rey Rey took the shot. I got some nice pictures of Roy with the phone afterwards with Al too before retreating and changing back. The FMA group assembled and rehearsed a bit in 5241. But then while we were in Tiffy's room when she got the word that there was an error in reservation and we all had to move out. Luckily Lance was just down the way in room 5220 so the FMA group relocated there. It was 4:30 before we knew it and the girls went off for intermediate judging. They didn't get back until 5:30 and that's when Henry and I had to leave. While they were gone though, I managed to freehand draw Scar's tattoo on Henry's arm. We went over to expert craftsmanship at 5:30. Henry and I got #1 and 2 to be judged, but they wouldn't let us out to confirm our soundtrack. 6:00 rolls around and we have to be back at the room at 7:00 or else the doors are shut. So in some judging confusion Henry and I secretly departed and headed back to help everyone bring up our loads of props to the LP2 3rd floor ACC. We are #14 and still are #14. And by the way, we still haven't confirmed if our soundtrack is the right one. Kenji tell us that there was a second CD submitted that said AGSMA use this track on it. None of us sent that mysterious CD. *prays that it's not Chokotto Love* 45 minutes after 8 PM, the masquerade finally starts. I don't know exactly when we get on stage, but it happened pretty fast. All our cues are set. Ed, Al and Scar are planted on stage and the super nice MC reads our proper introduction. The music starts.... It's the right one! YAY! no HAHAHAHAHA! And everything progresses nicely. Henry and I are kings of ad lib when things go wrong. We make them right. And off goes Kitsy's skirt. YAY! And like every other convention AGSMA's been at, we make a mess of the stage and have to go back and clean up all our props. :D For the rest of the masquerade we much on food that Lance brought us and schmooze with iPLAY and the other cosplay groups. iPLAY's skit came out so good! "If you were a booger, I'd pick you!" Ami-kins came by and told us that we actually won something. So we got in line behind this super nice One Piece group. Al came over and took pictures with Al in a box. That was so awesome. Backstage, we heard the One Piece group get runner up presentation. And next.... Best Presentation goes to AGSMA Full Metal Alchemist! OMG WTF BBQ! Super cool! The trophy goes to RNR and we take tons of pictures. Come midnight we head back to the room to change out. Kitsy's lucky that Kon's still around and he's able to take her home. RNR retreat to nap, but not before taking their equivalent trade pocketwatch. Henry and I gather all our stuff from Lance's room to head to Hikkles two room suite 6305 which the Hilton gave to her because of the error they made with Tiffy (they shared the room). So big and roomy! I hung out for a bit then moved all my stuff back out to the Marriott and left without paying the $13. Met up with Steve before getting there and we talked YGO for an hour before I actually left the con. Monday: Clean up day! First thing is to pick up my missing leather jacket from Jenny. Then went to Ami-kins and picked up the random DVD awards for the Best Presentation. Also picked up a ton of copies of the AX Times that printed the masquerade winners to hand out to group members. I took a CCS and Angelic Layer DVD. Lance took Nightwalker and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Kitsy took the KOF GBA game and City Hunter and the stuff that Henry left at her table on purpose. Left the telephone with RNR so they can take pictures with Hughes. Said my farewells to the team and thanks for the great experience. Of course, Henry was still around until 7 PM so we hit up Downtown Disney to watch Spiderman 2 with Hikkles. Very cool movie! Pacific Media Expo Location: Anaheim Hilton and Convention Center, Anaheim, California Friday: Tonight's the night of the big TMR concert. Heeeee, I didn't go of course. It's not Hello! Project. Anyway, I come in at 5 with some dinner I brought in, thinking that my hotel room would be waiting for me. I'm not anywhere on their roster! And I need my hotel info before I can get my staff badge. And Misa wasn't picking up her phone! And I was in the no fly zone of the hotel (which is almost all of it). After trying to hook up to the Starbucks Wifi, and other assorted measures, 3 calls to Misa later in Con Ops to three different staffers, I finally got my hotel room info. 3 glorious nights in room 7120, 2 full beds, and concierge privileges. Free drinks and snacks = KEY. I was a late add on, so my badge wasn't preprinted or even ready. They couldn't print one out cos the printer didn't have a parallel cable. >.> Hai showed up about 8 PM, got him into the Con Ops system, but no badge for him either. Went out to dinner with Darryl and his crew at Dennys. Got back and headed off for the mandatory 11 PM staff meeting. Imagine our surprise when we found out it was a bag stuffing party. Mmmmm. Laters! Hai and I fled that before anyone noticed. We dueled YGO for a bit. Wayne forgot his deck tho, so it was just me vs. Hai. Saturday: Wake up pretty early, 9 AM. Clean up, free breakfast of cereal and fruit. Judging from 12-6. Misa was so nice to provide us with lunch at 1 PM, I had roast beef and cheddar sandwich. During any downtime Hai and I would duel, and of course someone would come in, and by the time we were done we'd return to our duel and our calculators had auto-slept and we'd totally forgotten how much damage we did. Also Softie would have been playing all his H!P collection so that was also pleasant. Of course there was a mini rush at the end so that translated into 6:30. Changed into Kaiba and took some quick pictures and changed out before Karrie could molestering me. Caught up with Karriekins (I comped her pass) and Makkura and we went out to eat at Red Robin. Pretty decent food. More sandwiches for me but with clam chowder this time. Yum! We then waited in line for Psycho le Cemu's debut US concert. Free of course since they were recording it for a DVD. Saw AJ, Annie, Aimee, PSpace all with priority/backstage seating. It was a great concert! It started about an hour late so I managed to clean up, move some stuff to the car and then meet up. After being deafened, we chilled with Karrie kins for a bit before turning in. Tomorrow's an early start. Stopped by concierge tho for some chocolate covered strawberries. Mmmmm. Sunday: Wake up even earlier, 8 AM, cereal, fruit, blended ice coffee, and some reserves. Judging only from 10-2 but this time it was pretty busy. Lots of last minute stragglers and people with big impressive costumes came through. Lunch break courtesy of Misa, same thing as yesterday. Delicious! We finished judging 15 minutes after 2 with about 30 minutes for discussion. Hikkles showed up but we said we'd judge her at the masquerade. Karriekins, Hachan and Makkura were all waiting and hanging out. The YGO tournament came and went. Hai got stuck with a round robin and I should not use my fun deck for tournaments. It was a valuable learning experience. Hachan was very upset that she couldn't molestering me as Kaiba. Heeeee. We cruised the dealer room for a bit and failed to win Disgaea. Hachan did manage to win some huge Persona stand up thing. Hachan and Makkura bought lots of plastic thingies. We then walked over to Denny's for dinner. Of course I had a country scrambler breakfast. It was so much food, so I had to take a pair of pancakes home. Had to be at the masquerade at 7 so we paid early and let Karrie slowly finish her dinner. Went over some test runs. Karriekins, Hachan and Makkura showed up about 8:15 which was good cos the masquerade actually started on time at 8:30. Judging only took about 20 minutes and before we knew it, the masquerade was over! Many people went out to Dennys to eat, but since we already ate, we just chatted and chatted back in room 8313 until Hachan had to go home. Hai gave her some YGO decks and her eyes lit up. Then she yelled at us for addicting her to something else. heee. After she left, Hai, Karrie and I went down to the lobby for a spell. All the doors were locked but we saw the Nekos in the main lobby. So we chatted and dragged them up to 7120. Fed them leftovers since they haven't eaten for days and sooner or later, other people started creeping in. Monday: We were up until 3 AM chatting with Darryl, Softie, Bailey, Tina, Melo, Wayne, Averi, Nekos, and Karriekins. Finally everyone tired out and collapsed. Woke up about 10 AM after various interruptions like noisy kids, plumbing problems and alarm craziness. Moved all the stuff to the cars, it took two trips. I finally got pictures with the Rancor Pit bone so I won't need to be transporting that anywhere much anytime soon. We hit the dealers hall for a few turns. Stopped by a special promotion party for PLC but left that as it was ending soon. Ran in to AJ and Pspace who went crazy at said event. Karrie came down for a bit but afterwards I left, about noon. Nothing else really was going on. 2003 LosCon 30 Location: Burbank Airport Hilton, Burbank, California Saturday: So at about 10 AM I get a call from Ziggy, who neglected to give me his cell phone # when I traded mine a few days back saying they were running a little bit behind from staying up to 4 AM working on their costumes. X_X. Ziggy was fortunate enough to bring his sewing machine down and they were each taking turns on working on it. So I stop off at Frank n Sons prior to heading up to Burbank. That only delayed me an hour or so and so I get there 12:30 PM ish. I give Zig another call and AJ picks up the phone. They were in room 431 and so I take the Aqualad costume up the East Tower, and find out it's the wrong tower. So I go to the West Tower and this cute girl (Haiyan) with a British Colony accent is at the door. It's Ziggy's friend from Australia, she was dressed in a Gogo Yubari outfit. So kyu! And AJ was all dressed in her Starfire. She couldn't use her original bodysuit because she'd be too nekkid and orange, so she borrowed Moo's. Moo was having issues with her bodysuit's crotch wrinkling all weird. And Zig had just got out of the shower. Daanish showed up about 15 minutes later and 5 minutes later he was already changed into Mad Mod. Took me a good 30 minutes to writhe into Aqualad, it's like a second skin. I had a little unforeseen problem with chipping paint from the gloves (which I resolved in 30 minutes after I got home at 12:30 AM). Zig had some issues with his face paint, but it turned out he was using too much. If he just smeared it then it would work out okay. He decided to pass on the ears and wig for this version of Beast Boy. Annie also showed up! No costumes, but just to hang out. AJ gave her Blackfire material. ^_^. I think it was about 1-1:30 before we decided to actually go to the con downstairs. We were walking around looking for the masquerade sign in and we passed by a room where Zig noticed Wil Wheaton was one of the guests. He's Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: Next Generation, and also is the voice for Aqualad. But he was busy talking in his panel about how to publish so we decided that we'd finish registration for the masquerade and the con itself. We saw a little masquerade sign up this way sign and went to the end and doubled back and finally found the table. We did masquerade sign in form while we were getting our badges. One day Saturday admission was $25. Moo was inventive to get her location to be Azarath so I had mine be Atlantis. We turned in all the forms and sat down at the panel for a little bit, but then decided to come back when the panel was over to take pictures with Wil. So while we were looking for a photo area, we ran into this guy that was like "Hey you've dressed up as my characters!" AJ was like @_@. Turns out that it was Marv Wolfman. He just happened to be the creator of Teen Titans way back when it came out on DC comics. So the original Teen Titans in the 1960's. He was totally excited and we took pictures with him and chatted for a bit. He was totally enthusiastic and Ziggy got his card to send him pictures. He said that he gave some input on the revamped Teen Titans that we were costuming from that is currently showing on Cartoon Network. "Yeah, I wrote the story for one of the episodes" "Oh really? Which one?" The Aqualad episode. *_* Gee. Good day for Aqualad. We took a bunch of pictures at poolside with Karisu's family and Annie and then when it was nearly 4:30 we hurried back to meet Wil Wheaton. He was very casual, and recognized me, but hardly knew any of the other characters. Turns out the only episode of Teen Titans that he's ever seen is the one he VA'ed for but we all took pictures with him, it's all good. After that we all decided to go eat so we went to change out for dinner and decided on going to Islands. AJ and I also decided on a rough skit idea for the masquerade. About 20 minutes later after leaving the hotel we arrive at Islands, with Ziggy being about another 10 minutes late from getting horribly lost. I had a yummy Hula burger but had to refrain from my usual iced tea due to the costume and the inconvenience it poses. We finished about at 6:45 PM and hello, the masquerade starts at 7:30. So Annie dropped us off back at the hotel and she went to go visit her friend. We all had a mad dash to get back into costume, and report to the green room. We actually make it since we're more efficient after wearing them once. We were put in Den 3. We were entry 8 out of 22. The skit was short and sweet, only took about 30 seconds. Starfire and Raven would start on stage, Aqualad would walk by and they'd be bubbly hearts. Then Beast Boy would walk by and try to impress them and they'd be like bleh. Then Mad Mod would come in and they wouldn't be sure, until he started scratching his ass. Then they'd freak and run away and he'd chase after them. All while playing the Teen Titans theme song. Afterwards took plenty of pictures but we had a full day and changed out. Normal clothes are nice! I can breathe again. So when we were done with all that it was about 11 PM and we all said our goodbyes at the dance and ta ta! I made it home in 50 minutes and then spent the next 30 minutes repairing my shedding Aqualad gloves. Very fun! AniMagic Location: Best Western Hotel, Lancaster, California Friday: Drive in for a 2 PM arrival time, but then get notification that Peach is missing an eye and Angela is needing sequins. So I stop by the Joanns on 10th Street to get all the supplies. Luckily this Joanns had the Desert Storm print I've been looking for so I managed to get stuff that I needed on this trip as well! And used up my gift card. By the time that was all done I practically missed the 2 PM guest panel, but that was okay since Tiffy was handling it with the rest of the guests. So I took the time to move into our room 118. Our other room was 295, both of which were graciously provided by Animagic. Unfortunately 118 was only a single queen so we needed to get a rollaway bed for me which was fine. That means I get my own bed! Before I knew it I geared up into Momoiro Tsunku. Tiffy loved that outfit. We caught up with Kyle and had a massive photoshoot. Opening Ceremonies came up faster than expected. Of course no one notified me that I was supposed to be present at those so >.> oops, cos I went to Popeyes for dinner. But we got there for the opening of the Revue. Tiffy did so good! The crowd was docile however. Of course once we were done with Momo, it was a quick change into Chokotto Love. The girls stayed in 118 to rehearse while I kept an eye on the Revue so I could get them when it was time. The acts were so nice like the Hizashigumi and ZONE. Then it was the girls turn to get on stage. Yay! So peppy and happy! And after that was the photoshoot for Chokotto Love with Kyle. After that was rehearsals on the stage at about 11 in utter darkness. A few run throughs and the girls got used to the stage. There was also watching of all the videos from 2003 including Fanime and AX courtesy of Lionel! I managed to sleep by 1 AM Saturday: First shoot of the day is Morning Coffee. But before that was the mission to mark the stage. The only tape available was the peace bonding tape, so I essentially peace bonded the stage. Only Annie and Tiffy for this one since Hikkles went home yesterday. While we were walking around we bumped into a hungry G-chan. So I take her to the local Chinese place for take out. She was so happy! G-chan is such a darling. I had Szechuan Pork and Almond Chicken lunch and it was only $5! The next shoot coming up was The Peace! But since there were three bus loads of Japanese students, Tiffy got into Momo to see if they would recognize her. She managed to catch them as they were leaving in their buses and they were so happy to see her! We managed to get 6 girls for that Peace together which was remarkable considering that is over a year old. We then arrived at the Staff dinner (slightly late because Hikkles just managed to drive in (IN her Peace outfit)) and the girls ate dinner in those outfits. After dinner, we managed to squeeze in Aiin! Dance no Uta pictures with Kyle at 6:10 prior to the sound test. Sound testing for Love Machine didn't go off until about 7, and one of the mics was out (because it was still set in the off position). It was good to see that Dennis from J-ENT made it down to AM! So off the girls to get ready in Love Machine. Rachael (our helpful liaison) was in the room, and since I'm the quickest change, I grab her to secure our seats in the audience. Little by little the girls filed in. The masquerade itself went rather quickly and we had to go on stage a little sooner than I thought. With the peace bonded stage the performance was splendid. No one knew the dance tho, which wasn't surprising since this would probably be their first time hearing the song. Of course tons of photos to ensue. Took care of Annie's Sexy Beam shots from memory. I changed out quickly because it was getting late and we have an early early panel tomorrow. However I still didn't get to sleep until about 2 AM from chatting with Awwie all nite. Sunday: Bwaaa, early waking. The rollaway finally got to my back from being all mush. So I woke up at bout 8 AM. Went over and had breakfast with Rob Miles, and from there on set up the Vision room for the panel. He really hooked us up with the film projector, VCR, DVD player. I managed to snake a red sharpie for Tiffy for some signs and return it to con ops. And then rustled up Lionel to hook up his laptop to the system and yay for it all communicating properly. The Hello Morning Karaoke was super fun! I really liked it when Jacob tried to sing with his blade gloves on. But AJ won in the end and got the Love Machine CD! And the drawing contest was well amusing. >.> The best picture over all must have been "sink-ku". What an interesting interpretation! On the drawings, G-chan won the Koi no Dance Site CD. :D After the panel tho, I was out! Caught up with Albert who hooked me up! Word! And I was back home in 1:30 hours record time. Anime Expo Location: Anaheim Hilton and Convention Center, Anaheim, California Wayne: We need a Yugi Kie: I heard that Darryl's free Wayne: Get him then *few hours later Kie: I'm having problems convincing him, request backup Wayne: Got it, I'm on the case. Darryl: So, you've come to your senses and want me to be Boo Takagi or Okamura for USA Musume right? Wayne: Not exactly. We have a skit idea for AX, and we want you to have the STAR-ring role. (lovely emphasis on star, in fact, a furry star) Darryl: Cool! So who do I get to be? Wayne: Yugi, from Yu-Gi-Oh Darryl: .... Yugi.... oh my god (and hence the title of our skit came into being) Wayne: I've got the hair and puzzle made for you, you just need to supply yourself and some random bondage gear. What else will it take to get you in the skit? Darryl: I wanna dirty dance with Kie Wayne: Deal! Darryl: Yes! Kie: Whaaaaaaaaaaaa? Wayne: Kie, don't you want Darryl to be in our skit as Yugi? Kie: Yush! Wayne: Then it's settled! Welcome aboard Darryl! Kie: But but but dirty dancing! Darryl: Don't worry Kie, I'll lead! Thursday: The first day of AX. If you saw me this day, count yourself lucky! I arrived about noon and intercepted Darryl at Carls Junior. Met up with his AX Staff buddies and afterwards we went to the masquerade booth with the two Kuribo and Blue Eyes White Plushie (BEWP). I rediscovered the wonders of Hilton parking at a mere $4 for the time I was there, compared to $13 that was a flat rate at the Marriott. I found out I actually needed my badge before registering for the masq, and thank goodness, Kitsy's already signed up for us. I go with Darryl to the Anaheim Convention Center (ACC) to the mysterious 1.5th floor to get my badge. For some reason I wasn't in the system, so a few well placed calls later and I was hooked up. I still need to get a refund on my other badge, hopefully it will come soon or be applied towards next year. After that, went back to the masquerade booth, saw Wayne #2, Rachel, Ashley, Hai all there too. Summoned the rest of the crew save for Lance and we all retreated to Darryl's room at Marriott 835 to record the soundtrack. We all chatted for a while and looked at plushies but finally got the recording to start. I see Darryl is quite fond of the fuzzy electrical starfish wig for Yugi. Recording starts, and Paffo is first with Pikachu and Isis lines. Since I needed to go to work on finishing all the trim for Black Magician, I went next as Kaiba. I was doing really well until I got to "disable". Redid that line about 10 times but it still sucked and we just moved on. Luckily that line got edited out later. Then I got a trouble call from the Fee in the middle of recording but luckily she fixed it so I was exempt from going over to help out. I departed after that. I was told that heroic Darryl had tons of problems with his lines, but everyone else was there to help coach him. Recording the lines was terribly amusing and it's a good thing we didn't keep the outtakes. Those were embarassing. So back home and I work on DM until midnight. And I actually finish! Friday: Wake up bright and early and get to transporting the DM staff, and armor pieces and all of Kaiba. No one is awake when I arrive and I found out that already I have some damage to the DM armor which needs to be repaired. I spent from 7-9 distro-ing pictures from Fanime that I had developed. Met up with John Taylor from City of Hope and chatted for a bit, returned his business cards. I saw Jayjay, Laura Feeney, Gina and the rest of Sakura Mochi while meandering around. Sent out reminders to the C!NP girls that they need to get ready for the Mini Masquerade performance at 9:30. Since I couldn't get in touch with Tiffy, I went to her room for a little bit and found myself a new plushy pillow Kelly! Yay! Tiffy and I exchanged piccies but since time was running out, I had to go to my car and change into Kaiba since Darryl was already at the Mini Masq. It took me sooooo long to get into Kaiba, because it's a hard costume to put on by myself. But it was do-able. I use my briefcase as primary means of storage like usual and head on over to the Mini Masq. Met up with Kim Lim and Patrick from Anime Boston as my fellow judges and we schmoozed with the contestants and staff. The orchestra had already set up their equipment and there was a little scare to the UM girls that they would be right after the orchestra but we got that cleared up with Casey. Kie was dressed but didn't have any make up and the other two were in pajamas so they all had to go back and change after a quick sound check arranged by V-Tech. Tiffy sounded so good considering that she had a sore throat. The Mini Masq started and by entry 22, still no girls. @_@. They were due after entry 25. So a phonecall to them to remind them to get up to the ACC Main Events ASAP> They made it up just in time. They were slightly winded but luckily there was an intermission so they could have a breather and some water. Performance time and it all went out so well! No rumbly stage like last year which was awesome. They stayed for the rest of the Mini Masq and after that they departed for a photoshoot with Kyle. Judging only took 15 minutes and I gave my award to Chibi Bishoujo, a very nice youth Sailor cosplayer. The Best of Show group had a very "Spirited" Away sketch and was overjoyed with the award that they came up and hugged all the judges and took pictures with us. I had a really positive experience from the Mini Masq. I went downstairs and met up with Kelly in her Chun Li. I haven't seen her in ages! So we browsed the dealers room together, each of us getting stopped for pictures separately and once in a while a picture together even though we weren't matching. I got challenged to duel a few times but couldn't since I didn't bring any dueling decks. Considering that I don't have any dueling decks, I'm hoping that Kelly can hook me up and bolster a deck that I'll make some day. Afterwards Kellykins and I changed out and went to get lunch (this is 4 PM) at the little cafe downstairs since she'd already ate at the coffee place, pizza place and corner restaurant. Of course Kelly locked herself out of the room so in order to get back, we intercepted Ashypoo in the middle of her Suikoden gathering. Since Kelly was super tired she took a nap and I tried to get Ashy's key back to her. Luckily I caught up with Tiffy and gave her the room key. Paffo and I went back up to 13339 in the way corner where I found their mom slaving away on BMG and a pair of incomplete duel disks. Kiyoshi taught me how to bevel with foamcore so I cut out the second pair of DD wings. Paff and Kiyo geared up in Zelda while we waited for Kie to show up. Neko mom needed alot of help with BMG so I stayed in the room working on DD's and coaching her in the fine art of last minute cosplay. After an hour or so of trying to call up Kie so she can tell mom want she wanted done with BMG, she shows up. By that time the DD's have shape. I had plans to get into either Rare Hunter or seifuku Kaiba but I had to cancel them since I was working in the Neko room. I also ended up having to cancel on going to that final Ranma 1/2 episode party hosted by Viz at Downtown Disney. After some talking with her mom, Kie was convinced to put on Zelda while her mom and I would work on BMG for her. Her mom wanted me to cancel BMG from the skit, but since it we already recorded the soundtrack, that was unacceptable to me. So of course I would stay and help her mom with finishing it. It took Kie about an hour to put on her Zelda costume and in that time I finished painting her BMG wand with gold and pink, and the wings for the DD's. Kiyo had left early as Link and came back to get them and all of the Zelda group departed. I didn't leave the Neko room until about 10:30, after the fireworks. In that time I completed the core unit to both DD's added the red triangles to the wings and did alot of trim work on BMG's boots and arrows with her mom. Got back home at a decent time to finish repairs on my DM, and pack everything up in the car. I nearly forget to pack the hat but luckily I woke up at 1 AM and threw that in the trunk too. Saturday: I wanted to sleep in! But no, I get moving at about 8 when I get a call from Darryl. The due time for craftsmanship judging is noon and the soundtrack is at 2:54 with everything in place. Augh! It's too long! So first thing to do is to get over ato the Marriott and work on the soundtrack with Darryl. After some cutting and paring, we got the skit down to the 2 minute time limit. That took about an hour. Sexy Baby initially was put in at an extremly loud volume but we turned that down too. Met up with SJ for their craftsmanship, so Gina and I traded notes on the Sera Myu Diamond costume construction. She was unable to find the neck piece gem. After I sent Darryl to bring the script CD to the Neko's I went to Kitsy's to help her put on the Kaiba. See, when I put that costume on Kitsy, it only takes me 5 minutes. Everything's napped in and she's ready to go. I pack up the cards and take them downstairs for judging and then I head up to Darryl's to change into Black Magician. I'm halfway done with Darryl shows up to change into Yugi. I head down first and take some random pictures in the lobby. Then Kitsy, Paffo and Kie (in boots and gauntlets only of BMG) show up with Kuribo and BEWP for judging. We wait about 12 after Sakura Mochi and it's within that time Darryl suffers the fate of being Yugi. Darryl accidentally leaves his DM card with the judges for reference and he reclaims it later. We all head back up to the Neko room after craftsmanship and Lance shows up. We were going to plan to rehearse but the 2 PM meeting time has come, so we all head down to the ACC. The meeting goes on til 3 PM but we sent Paff, Kie, Kitsy and Lance back to the room to listen to the soundtrack and finish costumes. Darryl and I stay behind and elave a whole mess of props backstage so we don't have to transport them later. We decide to leave the more noticable parts of the costumes behind as well, such as fuzzy starfish and the DM hat so we don't get stopped for pictures. We stop by to try and find Darryl's DM card but no luck. Darryl says he'll just use Beaver Warrior for pictures. Grab some cold pizza and water for lunch. Back to the Neko room while Darryl, Lance and I work on blocking and skit movement. After a few runs, we bring in the girls for full rehearsals. We go through the skit about four times. Things we had to control were Darryl's wind blowing action and Kitsy's laughing at Darryl. Lance gets his cards in order as well as his Reaper of the Cards equipment. Darryl's having problems keeping his jacket up so he makes himself a string bra to keep it up. Kie still needs work done on her cape and dress and the hat isn't even started yet. Paffo has to fix up her hood and her hair. 6 PM rapidly approaches so me, Lance, Paff and Darryl grab the remaining props and head to the ACC> Kiyo has left to get the crosses from the Neko car and will meet us there. Up at the ACC it's schmoozing and waiting for Kie and Kitsy to show up. 6:40 rolls around and finally a BMG shows up! It's Hikkles tho, not Kie. 7:10 rolls around and Kie shows up with her BMG outfit, sans hat. During pre-masquerade preparation Kitsy and I help her out making her hat. She forgot the pattern to her visor though and so she'll just have to go without. Her dress isn't hemmed, but since craftsmanship is over, all we need is something presentable. Her BMG costume is "complete" about 8 PM> Also had to periodically fix Darryl's jacket bra. Trying to get the DD"s on Darryl and Kitsy was also and adventure in masking tape. We were entry number 31 and at the pre masquerade meeting, we were told that intermission was going to happen after 25. After we find out that the group name is still Baby Neko Twins, we tried to change it to YuGiOhMyGod, but then also found out that intermission is after 31. @_@. So we all get ready and I miss out on the opening of 30, Tiffy's Chicago skit, but finally get let in the room, since I was getting tape for Kitsy. Thank goodness the group title was changed, and adequate time was set for us to plant all our props. We got good response with Fanservice, US Censorship and most of all, Hong Kong Bootleg cards. Darryl hands over the 8 x 10 glossy of himself to Misa afterwards. When the skit is done, we go outside for fan pictures, but since there was intermission, we got a ton of pictures taken. That was actually pretty lucky. After that was all said and done, I take Pikachu to return to the LP2, to find Rachel and Karisu's little daughter waiting. Rachel had to keep her in check until we returned and when she saw me she automatically glommed onto Pikachu. Kyu kyu little Merle. After intermission was over, we missed about 6 skits in order to take re-enactment photos. Once I returned tho, I pretty much was confied to my set as Merle would bounce around playing with the Pikachu around me. So I didn't get a chance to talk to Tiffy's team or other groups, but it was okay, since lil Merle was so happy. And I wasn't the only one with a little girl orbiting him. Darryl found himself surrounded by Sara and her Mini Magical Girls team getting tormented about being Yugi. Kitsy told me that there was some girl who thought that she was me since I wore the exact same outfit just one day earlier. It was AJ. :D All throughout the intermission AMV's played with Merle and Pikachu dancing around the seats up until awards were announced. Whoa there, YGOMG won an honorable mention in presentation. All my sins upon Darryl have instantly been forgiven! The Yugi hair, the plushie pelting, just being Yugi in general. All absolved. Interestingly enough, we got a nice trophy and random DVD's of anime we've never heard of. How ironic. But we didn't get a 8x10 glossy of Darryl back. Kie was sad, she wanted it back. After the masquerade is over at midnight, we all went out to take pictures. Then I get a happy-gram from Fee, "Dude Wayne you are SOOOOOOO in big trouble!" I try to do damage control but no avail and so the only answer is to return home ASAP, skipping out on any remaining pictures. So in a whoosh, Kitsy changes out and I squish the entire Kaiba costume into the suitcase and file back to the Marriott. iPLAY follows me and is molestering me down the escalator. But finally I get to Darryl's room, change out, get to the car and dump everything in the car and go home. I told the Nekos previously that they could hold on to the Kuribos until Animagic, but the Kuriboh's magically came home with me. Since they are twins too, I think I will name them Paff and Span. :D Fanime Con Location: Santa Clara Westin Hotel and Santa Clara Convention Center, San Jose, California Thursday: Gee, it'd be a good idea if I packed my black vinyl shoes wouldn't it? Oh I should bring Shigure for Ha-chan. *stuff stuff* Friday: All packed. One bag. No gun-case chan. But then again, no weapons this time around. Unless you count the microphone. So off to the airport and get on the plane and find out.... They have to REBOOT the plane. X_X. Literally reboot the plane and start up it's OS all over. That took a good 45 minutes. I'm so lucky that Lionel was EXTREMELY patient and waited for me at SJC for the pick up. Thank you! Saturday Noon: Supposedly I'm supposed to help with rehearsal at 10:30. Too bad I just got in. Lionel escorted me to room 502, home of the Tiffy and Ashy. 501 was the Hikkles, Annie and Angela. I dropped off my stuff in my own little section of the room. Meeting for the masquerade is at 11. I saw the Neko's downstairs in their KOF costumes. Kix and Fee were in their KH costumes. We gathered the rest of the group together for the pre-masquerade meeting. Gave Karriekins her pressie for her bday, the Nekos the cloth from FD, and Twix the extra silver vinyl. We were entry number 34. Managed to turn in a CD for practice and at the far end of the room. There, I went through my part of the routine about three times. And we got a onstage rehearsal! It was the temporary stage set up but it held up pretty good to jumping girls. Afterwards, the rest of the girls and Henry went to go eat lunch while I went to starve and sleep. I managed to take this time to go the dealer's room but didn't find anything that I wanted or couldn't get at a better price somewhere else. At 2 PM, Lionel got the video camera, and Arty the boombox, and so I changed into RR21 Tsunku to do the test shots. Luckily Karrie kins was finished and she actually went first for video shooting. Then it was me. Angela came down next. Then Ami, Fee, Hikkles, Kie, Annie, Tiffy and last was Paffo. Because we went back up and got Tiffy to do her make up and then I had to spray her hair gold again. Saturday Evening. So at the time Paffo is done, I resuit up (I change in and out cos of extreme temperature ness) With a little disappearing act by Hikkles, we manage to relocate her and tape 2 run throughs of the group behind the convention center in front of the black glass windows. Very nice effect. First run, everyone stayed in place and second take was the default mode. It was windy and cold, but I was okay and they were okay after some activity. Some people think that RR21 Tsunku is Wizard, painted black, down the visor. And then there's Karrie who calls me Super Vinyl Man. X_X. Then to return the boombox and thanks to Lionel & Arty and have them return to the audience. UM took a 15 minute break then filed into the backstage area. I stayed with Nekos for that period of time. Since we were group 34, we put on the right side of backstage. There were two transparent screens and plenty of water set up. Super sweet set up. Tiffy tried to spike my hair, but my hair was quite disobedient. It did feel quite weird tho, and crusty. Watching AMV's backwards was difficult but otherwise we could see the acts and routines perfectly. Kie did something bad. :D Chub. Luckily it got fixed. Little Sara was so kyu in her Myu costume. Halftime comes around we we're swapped over to the other side. We follow Nando's super sweet PSO skit. Which was odd since he used to be entry 38 but evidentally they got moved up. Ashy and CJ were so detailed with their Grandia costumes. Tiffy gives the UM girls a quick debriefing and it's time to go! We're up! T_T Dieter didn't read our super cool intro but that was alright. No mess ups with the starting of the track, and all went well! The podium presented a small obstacle when I had to get back on stage for the Tsunku rap sequence but that wasn't too bad at all. The girls were phenomenal! 9 months of practice sure paid off! The microphones weren't set too high but I could at least hear all the girls singing. Another plus was the audience stayed quiet and refrained from clapping to the beat which was also helpful to hear the singing. The girls lingered on stage for naisu picture opportunities then rest time! After the masquerade was over, picture time! We must have been relocated 5 times as we were herded towards the main lobby. Saturday Night. But the main lobby is where we stayed for pictures for a very long time. Got to talk with everyone! Jayjay, Mich, Dennis, Kyle and Sarah. Made some really cool connections! But tons of pictures in between. We didn't get to break until about 12 midnite. I changed out, then took Paffo away for Sexy Beam pictures. Yay! We finally all met up again and deparated for IHOP for dinner/breakfast/any meal is a good meal. I had breakfast with Kie and Annie and Henry and many more people. But afterwards.... dead. I didn't care about the hairspray in my hair or showering. BED. Sunday Morning. Bed at 2, wake up at 7. I couldn't get back to sleep. So I disassembled RR21 Tsunku and transformed that costume into Jima. I love that costume! It took me longer to put on than I expected but I think it was well worth it. Henry was up too because it was 10 AM his time and we was downstairs reading Harry Potter while I was changing. We went for an early morning photoshoot, atop of pylons, almost getting killed on rooftops, and super lazy pictures at the top of the garage. We even took USB pictures cos my Jima is USB compatible. :D. I was waiting for other people to wake up but by 9 AM I was tremendously overheating in that costume like it's predecessors, Wizard, Dilandau and RR21 Tsunku. So I woke up Ashy and she took some naisu pictures of me so I could change out. Oh and the shower was sooooooo good. I ended up putting more gel on top of the crusted hairspray that I had last nite from RR21 Tsunku in order to slick/spike my hair for Jima. And then pack pack pack! Off we go at 12! Ashy and Henry and I say our goodbyes! Stop off at Togos for a hot pastrami sandwich for my wait at the airport! Luckily check in and security were of such low wait I cleared both in 20 minutes! So I ate lunch and slept until 2:30. When I wake up I see none other than Melkins! Yay! And we hang out cos we're taking the same plane! That was soooooo cool. We can carpool and stuff the next time we go to Fanime! 2002 AniMagic Location: Best Western Hotel, Lancaster, California Saturday: Arrive with Kevin on the scene at about 10 AM. Went to Joanns to pick up buttons (which were never used) and scope out local restaurants. Arrive at the Mini USA room to find them all sreeping, and get the keys to the room 283. We find tons of bottles everywhere and Matt out to lunch on the bed. Kevin and I move in all out bags and check out registration (which is all full and about a 30 minute wait). So we decide to get badges later. While going around and scoping out the territory, lunch time rolls around. Since the Mini Moni girls are busy, Kev and I go out food shopping and paint shopping (and hair gel). So Kevin and I got 1/2 lb cheeseburgers for $1.99 and a big box of Popeyes chicken for the girls (with mashed potatoes with weird gravy). Even before I started my lunch, I had to go to masquerade registration in the Vision room and get Mini Moni registered and listened to the rules and regulations and questions. I didn't even get to finish my drink since I was dragged back out to return the CD back to the girls since there was no case and they wanted CD's at 6 PM anyway. The girls were working hard on their respective costumes so I went out schmoozing and networking since they had everything under control. Met up with Lance again, which was super cool. Also went to distribute all the fabric to the other 5 girls on the team and collect monies so I wouldn't be so much in the hole. I managed to track down little Sara and give her a little plushy Mari to match her current Mari JKP outfit. So so so cute! She was so happy. I brought out the Sera Myu Diamond for them to look at but I left it with them since I had just saw Ami and wanted to get the stuff to her. Also seen Ashy and CJ for the first time since AX. I was asked to help name their group but totally forgot. But they got back to me with wanting assistance for their script. So I suggested to the Neko Twins that they use Odoru 11 and hop around and do the butt attack. Instant sell. And of course with the Neko Twins there, I managed to offload 2 more packages. Last to collect was Karrie, who I caught up with about 4 PM. We briefly discussed the script and their scary intro. The script was easily written since the skit was designed to embarass Rey Rey and be completely random. That and the iPLAY girls wanted to use the sexy jujitsu attack from Naruto. My attempts to use Morning Musume or 80's music in the skit were thwarted by iPLAY but at least we managed to use Aqua's Barbie Girl. Which was completely random, but they wanted Sakura to go "Hi Ken!". So I had to get another CD from my car and hand it over to iPLAY (the first one was Odoru 11). Then back to the room where Matto was in and out with horses heads and his various costumes. Matto was having a great time! I did some costume work on my own with the little time I had and went down a few times to check on the girls. Closing to the deadline though, they had to get changed so I went to finish up what they had left while they went judging. They ordered room service which was a bunch of sandwiches and fries and free drinks. Since I was working, I didn't have dinner until about 10 PM. The girls were gone for an hour or so, but then came back to eat dinner (which was cold by then) but hadn't been judged yet. I didn't paint enough white on one of the leggings but when they went back, they had all their costumes pretty much completed. Once they were done, it was time for me to change, so I got into Tsunku and put Samurai Jack over it. iPLAY came over again for a few minutes to see if we could come up with more improvisation and then we headed over. We got an early spot for iPLAY so that there would be plenty of time to go to Mini Moni. So I went on as Samurai Jack and the iPLAY girls in their Naruto outfits in "Let's Naruto" as entry #8. That skit was quite.... odd. Anyways, left and changed out into Tsunku. I had plenty of time so I actually took Samurai Jack back to the room. I didn't get pictures of him but I'll get those later. Regrouped with a tired Mini Moni and scary Bakatono. The girls reviewed their routine and before we knew it, it was time to go! I had one of the most evil intro's ever, and had alot of audience participation which was good. USA Musume (Mini Moni Division) was #28. They did so good! Yay! And Mattokun as Bakatono! @_@. He looked so fruity in his pink yukata. The microphones weren't so good as I found out from skit #8, but the girls were awesome! And Bakatono scared the judges. Then came the award announcing. Allie gave her award to a deserving up and coming cosplayer! Good Allie! So Cal Soul Cal won best group. USA Musume took best Dance so yaaaaaaay! We were all so dead so we didn't take too many pictures. Actually I doubt there will be an Animagic report since I was doing alot of other stuff at this convention. Got kicked out of the girls room again since they were changing back to normal clothes and they pretty much retired to bed after that. While I was exiled I went and talked to Jean and gave her a massage since she was all tired from helping R2 emcee. When they were done changing we chatted for a bit but we were so tired that we went back to our room. It was full of Matt and his buddies but we had to relocate them since we wanted to sleep. iPLAY joined up after we aired out the room fr a bit just until Allie showed up from her dinner with Albert, Ash, CJ, Nekos and Kiyoshi at 2 AM. I did alot of catch up with Allie but we finally conked out at 3 AM. Sunday: Woke up at 10 after going to bed at 3 AM. I was so hungry I just walked over to 7-11 and had a pair of taquitos and a big gulp for breakfast. When I came back everyone was still sleeping. So I changed into Prince Li and went out for a bit. Before I knew it, we had to check out and I also needed to be in Tsunku for pictures. Met up with Albert and got a copy of the tape. Also met up with Dennis and he took a variety of UM pictures with Mini Moni Division and Lily/Kie in the Peace. Kix and Hikkles took alot of butt shots. ^_^; I left Lancaster about 2 PM and woo, tired. Hee, we went to get some beef jerky afterwards for food. San Diego Comic Convention Location: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego and Embassy Suites, California Saturday Morning: I spent last night and a little bit of this morning trying to locate Kurumi, who was nice enough to inform me that she cancelled her previous plans of coming with me to SDCC when I woke her up at 6:50 AM to try and find out when to meet. So I went to head off alone to go pick up Mattokun from Escondido, which required me to take an alternate route, the 15. Arrived down there in Escondido at about 9, which was of course behind schedule, and we didn't leave there until 9:30 since Matt just woke up after a night of booze and scratching. Little did we know that Escondido was already south of San Diego and by trying to go down south on the 15, we ended up in National City. So we tried the 805 for a little bit. That didn't pan out either. Back in National City. There was this little masquerade meeting at 10:30, but luckily Henry was able to go to that while the Neko Twins were working on their costumes and I was stuck on the road with Matt. Finally we got on the 5 and went south and managed to get into San Diego. Matt was dying about this time from hunger so we got him an Ultimate Cheeseburger. Next was to try to locate the Doubletree Hotel. I had confused it with the Wyndham so I didn't get directions. My bad. Found the Wyndham, but not the Doubletree. Hikkles had called earlier and they said they had at tram to the convention center so I figured it wasn't that far away. We drove and drove and drove around the city looking for the Doubletree and asking for directions getting "Double what?" I loved how places did not have a phone book either. So we called 411 and established that the Doubletree was way too far away and decided to find parking. Karrie arrived about this point, and her and Jon parked at the Embassy Suites and walked over to the convention to meet Henry. Matt and I drove past this place which had $8 parking and we were like @_@ so we went around looking for cheaper ones and found one for $15 that we toured through and was full and a couple $20 ones. Ugh. So we went back to the $8 place. Saturday: Wow, something going good for us, there was a tram stop right at that parking lot so we finally arrive at the convention center at 12:30. Henry got our passes thank goodness and the Neko twins met up with him. First went to locate Grandis since I told her about a 12:30 meeting time. We went over to masquerade registration and somehow Benma showed up so that we could get all the signatures down and backstage passes. While we were there we completed our interview with Grandis for the cosplay book. Then hit the dealers room. It wasn't as flashy as last years but we went directly to Anime Pavilion to spend last years $50 certificate. I decided not to get anything and resulted in a DVD for Henry, manga for Tiff and VCD for Allie. We caught Jon playing the Initial D racing game and Henry got a picture. Then we toured around (Karrie, Kie, Jon and me) since Henry had to get a GTO autograph. We all got X cards from the Pioneer station and got everyone but Arashi. Karrie was this close to getting a shirt from Bandai but the dorks stopped handing them out and took the shirt I snatched for Karrie out of my hands. Boo! Then we went to check on Henry. He moved about two steps. We located everyone and decided we needed something to eat, but with a presumptive 4 PM rehearsal, we dared not go to Spaghetti Factory and instead opted to eat icky con food. Karrie was so hungry but didn't get anything while the twins and I had $4 hotdogs. Which took us 5 minutes to eat but 20 minutes waiting in line. So about 4 PM, I decide to call Hikkles to check on her status and find out that she just left from RH. @_@ That means, she'd prolly arrive at 6 PM. EEEEEH. Oh well, the show must go on and everyone else needs to rehearse. So we went up anyway to the second floor to meet everyone else and discuss rehearsals. Henry and Karrie broke down and bought pretzels so we sat there conversing for about 30 minutes while that was going on. We weren't allowed to rehearse in the hall but Melissa gave us some stage time at 4:45. The back up CD didn't work so we had to use the original and we ran through the production three times. On our dry runs, we didn't get to the end so we had to re-educate everyone on how it's supposed to end. Karrie stood in as Kimi and I decided she'd be a perfect Moon in the future. Afterwards, we left stage, but now they allowed hallway rehearsal so we went through it another few times with Henry's laptop. 5:30 rolls around. Saturday Night: I call to check on Hikkles and at least she's in San Diego now, so Karrie, Jon, Matt and I take the tram back to the Embassy to get our costumes. I took my bag back (which unfortunately had all the reference pictures and I forgot them in the car). I insisted that Matt take the other half of his Ultimate Cheeseburger back with him. By the time I get back, I find a tearful Hikkles, Annie and Jason at registration. They initially closed down registration and now it's special purposes and questions desk. But they were able to get their badges and I took Jason and Kimi backstage. There we got into costume and rehearsed with Kimi and Jason. On stage and in the hallway a few times. We were number 22. There were some technical difficulties with sound but those were resolved. They announced our skit, but started the music too fast. Luckily Melissa got that fixed and we started the skit with all the right cues. And it went off without a hitch. The crowd sung along to Ultimate Cheeseburger, and were chanting Jack as we left. Great audience response. After all was said and done, we took re-enactment pictures and then changed out as soon as possible. We didn't wait for the awards ceremony to beat the rush out. The guys were pretty much changed out at the convention while the girls changed out at 1626 Marriott, the twins' room. I retrieved my phone charger. Sunday: From that point, we decided we needed to eat, and Denny's was the only place open. Karrie, Jon, Vicky and Jenn opted to go home since it was so late. So the rest of us went to Denny's. Lisa and Brian were there and we chatted a bit. After Dennys, I took the twins back to their hotel and Matt had to get his hair gel from their room. Annie, Matt, Jason and Henry took Benma back to A&J's place. Matt and I ended up at the Doubletree first, but since they wouldn't let us get into the room without Hikkles ID, we just slept on the outside couches. 3 AM rolls around and the rest of the group arrive after a little tour of Mexico. Finally! The room. Henry and Jason were gushing about the cookies. >.> But I just passed out. Anime Expo Location: Long Beach Hyatt and Convention Center, Long Beach, California Thursday: @_@ I'm not done with Dilandau yet! I need two more days. hehehehe. So yes, that was planned. I just need to finish Dilandau by Saturday. So I pack all the relevant Dilandau materials, 3 Tsunku outfits, Sinbad, Li Syaoran and almost take Wizard but run out of trunk space so Wizard stays home. Its a good thing since I didn't even have time to wear Li. First ones there from our collaboration were the Neko Twins. I arrived and was sans room since Annie and Hikkles were still en route. Actually Annie had to be diverted to get Henry from the LAX airport and Hikkles was brought in by her brother. So I went with the Nekos to get masquerade registration underway. Cool! Darryl is down there running registration. It was quick and easy. Kiyoshi joined us and got his industry badge qualifications while we were waiting. The twins and Kiyo were hungry so we went up to their room "333" CHU! and decided on the little food place downstairs with the sandwiches. Then we heard about the shootings and airplane crashing on the news but then got calls from Henry and Tiffy that they were safe from coming in from LAX. My swords were sitting in gun case chan up in the neko's room. Soon afterwards, Annie and Henry arrived and then Hikkles so we could move into our room. There was a choice between smoking 2 bed and nonsmoking 1 bed. We opted for 2 beds. When we got in there ewwwwwwwwwww! So we had the place sprayed down with lysol. I claimed the bed closest to the window and left the girls to take the other bed. In a short time, 2 sewing machines were set up and we all wanted to get cracking on finishing up costumes. We just started and Kelly/Allie arrived from Mudd and were starting to get settled in. Henry had basically moved all his construction to our room as well so it was the Escaflowne room. Millerna's rapier was damaged on the airline travel and Henry hadn't finished any of the other swords. Poor Tiffy was having problems with the Westin and not allowed check in until 3 PM. We stopped by the Renaissance to get registered for the karaoke contest which had Dom helping! Then we all retreated back to our room and got ready for Morning Coffee. Henry had the laptop set up but before we got any Morning Coffee in there it was my super Mini Moni Video collection! Hikkles absolutely loves the Hinamatsuri PV. While at the Renaissance we saw a beautiful Peace Karrie! *SQUISH* such a cute Nacchi. Her hair was blue in the back tho ^_^;;;;. Well since USA Musume was in group 2 of the karaoke, we all walked back in the Morning Coffee outfits to practice. The practices for that didn't take too long so Tiffy started to learn the Chu! Natsu Party routine. Before long we had to head back to the Renaissance, but since they were behind, it was still about 30 minutes. I was busy cutting out gold trim for Dilandau. There were some microphone problems, like feedback but the song went off really well. So after that we went to the Rock bottom to eat some yummy food. Hikkles and I split a chicken artichoke pasta since we didn't want to be sleepy when we were sewing the rest of the night. After Rock Bottom all we did was head back and work on costumes. Sometime along the night we heard rumours that USA Musume got past qualifying rounds. That means Chu! Natsu Party is a go! Hikkles was slaving away at the Aibon costume. I completed all the trim for Dilandau and started to work on the vest. Friday: 4 AM rolls around and Annie's sewing machine is the best! It sewed through the white vinyl so easily! But Hikkles and I were so dead that we slept until 10-11. I poked Hikkles to tell her that she should be painting some 3's. She was so hard to wake up. I started working about 11 after a nice shower and pretty much completed the Dilandau vest by mid afternoon, with collar and all the trim. Now I was just doing minor fixing up such as getting the armor to stay on. I snuck in about an hour of being Sinbad while Kelly took about 3 hours to get into Jeanne. We took revised pictures and I kept my mask up the entire time practically. Then this random girl asked if she could glomp me, and so I let her and then she wanted me to autograph her shirt. @_@ okay! Before we knew it, it was karaoke semifinals time and everyone was cramming to get Chu Natsu Party done. I went ahead of time to get registered and tried to put us as the last entry. We took tons of pictures but my digital batteries ran out. Since I thought there was plenty of time, I went back to get batteries and they had already started the program when I got back. Turns out they wouldn't have let me introduce them anyway. They did so good! They were dancing so hard you could hear the stage thumping through the microphones. Afterwards I sent them back to get changed for the Peace. After the judges decided, USA Musume made it to the final round! So I turned in Annie's Peace CD and retrieved Chu Natsu Party and called the girls to come in. The girls didn't have enough time to prepare the Peace but at least they tried their best. In the end, USA Musume took runner up (3rd place) at the Karaoke. We got Boogie Pop Phantom shirts and scrolls for making it to semifinals and Maison Ikkoku DVD's for making it to final round. It was a very good experience for the girls and I know next year they'll practice harder. We heard what happened at the Music Video contest and some of our friends came down to watch the rest of the karaoke. After Karaoke it was midnight and Hikkles and I went to finish costumes while the rest went to Dennys to eat. R2 dropped by the room when we were there. Hikkles was working on Sora and I worked on Kelly's rapier. Kelly painted the roses on her armor and helped secure the Black Dragon Tribe flag. Matt came over to try on the cloak for Florken and the wig. The wig was super nasty and he was crying. Unfortunately Matt was pretty sick and he passed out on the girls bed without doing any work. Matt watched all our Morning Musume and Mini Moni videos prior to doing that tho. I think we brainwashed him. Saturday: Whoa there, it's 4 AM again! The horse isn't done, Folken's sword isn't done, Eriya and Nariya aren't done, and neither is Sora. Dilandau, Hitomi and Millerna are complete. I wake up and complete Millerna's rapier and Folken's sword in no time. I just had to disassemble the previous rapier since after all the damage it looked like white poop on a stick. Then I go to 333 to help the Nekos with their spots. Most everyone got their costumes presentable and went to craftsmanship judging to see Char, Kim, Darrl and Melissa. After that was the mandatory masquerade meeting. When AGSMA was called (entry 51/53) Matt had the idea that we all say AIIN. So we did. When that was done, Henry and I went back to finish the horse and bring it back to the convention center. The Neko Twins showed up just in time. So we went back to the room to finalize choreography and some minor rehearsal. The girls put on their make up and we all filed out at 6:10 to arrive at the Performing Arts center. Since there was space they went to the ladies dressing room to finalize their costumes. Henry and I fixed up the horse and explained it to the stage ninja what was supposed to happen. We rehearsed a few times in the dressing room thanks to the CD player brought by AMC. On stage, they let us plant the horse, but didn't do the introduction and they started the music slightly early throwing off everyone's cues. I exited the wrong side and my left leg armor piece fell off. But the shattering sword trick worked. From the audience it looked fine. Henry tripped on a step near the front of the stage and got a few laughts out of it. By the time the masquerade was over i t was midnight. We were surprised to win a Judges award at AX, and AKG North Campus also won a Judges award. Yay! We got an assortment of DVD's and a trophy. We were so happy that this set of DVD's didn't come with any extra Maison Ikkoku. We were trying to leave and took several pictures in the hallway before being forced outside the convention hall. We finally camped out near the water fountain and took a multitude more pictures. Kimi/Phavo and Hikkles were interviewed on the spot. That interview must have been quite amusing. Ah! My Cosplay showed up and we took pictures together and then made plans for the night. Afterwards being super tired, and hot, we retreated back to the Hyatt. I ate cold In n Out burgers for dinner and started to clean up the room. My inner shirt for Dilandau was stained pink. I fixed up some of the loose ends on the costume and packed most of it. R2 showed up totally drunk but Hikkles and I escorted him back to room 516 where he'd crash for the night. The twins were still in Eriya and Nariya so I changed into "end of movie" Dilandau and we took more pictures. Sunday: I did some more room clean up but then went down to 333 to help poor Paffo. After that was all said and done, it was 4 AM. I had to take a shower afterwards due to all the white dye in my hair and when I got out, Hikkles was already asleep and people were just chatty. Went to bed about 5 AM when all the people left. We woke up at 11. Room check out at 12! Justin's outfit is still here from last night since he let Kelly borrow it. Luckily he came to pick it up. Hikkles and I changed into 3 Nin USA Musume outfits while Tiffy and the Neko Twins got into Ayumi. We went into the dealers hall with Annie and bought tons of Hello Project stuff. I got CD singles of Furusato (10.50) and Momoiro Kataomoi ($5), Hikkles got Mini Hamuzu, Daite Hold on Me, Yeah! Meccha Holiday and Irropoi Onna Sexy Baby. Annie got Chokotto Love and the Love Sentarii Photobook. Afterwards I took Tiffy and Kelly to Disneyland for a bit, rested at home, and then returned to Disneyland to ride Space Mountain, Indiana Jones, Teacups and Mr. Toad before meeting up with Allie to have the girls go back with her. Such a fun convention! Fanime Con Location: Santa Clara Westin Hotel and Santa Clara Convention Center, San Jose, California Saturday Early Morning. Very early morning. We're talking 3:00 in the AM. I just finish Wizard's headpiece. It's the last thing I finished. I get a call from Tiffy at 3 AM asking me to take a cab to the hotel cos they just completed rehearsals for USA Musume. With Morning Musume so high in my likes now, the USA Musume project is quite dear to me. All the girls have put a lot of heart and soul into the project and at this point I'm just thrilled to see it get so far. But since I don't want to pass out before the convention, I go to sleep at 3:30 AM, after vaccuuming up the mess and killing some ants. Saturday Morning: AAAAAh! I nearly forgot the dress shirt for Oujirou! I had to drive back just to get it. That's a problem with last minute packing, you tend to forget stuff. The worst stuff to forget is costume stuffs. John Wayne airport security is totally beefed up, but since I took the first flight out, the wait was not that bad. I now like to check in luggages, unless I'm carrying fragiles. American Airlines was the carrier I took this time, and arrived at 9:10. Room 707 is where we were going and Matt, Henry, Hikkles and Tiffy were all there. I missed alot of Friday activity but just as well, I needed to finish Wizard. Spend the time unpacking and buying a Saturday pass ($25) and register my nickname as Tsunku. Spent the morning and much of the afternoon working on Hikkles antenna thingies (the red cords coming out of Hikaru's head) I decided they should come out of her neck like Wizards, so I designed it like mine. I had to make the cones cos the night before I asked Hikkles what she needed. And that was a headband and cone making things. I initially made the cones red, which was a boo boo and I quickly corrected it. Hikkles glue gun is sooooooo bad. Tacky glue works better. Her glue gun is low temperature and so it can solidify even on the metal part of the glue gun. It sucks! Gimme a high temperature blister yourself if you got it wrong glue gun anyday. Henry goes to work on her headset. Hikkles finishes the Misaki for Annie. I hear of Henry's "Yatta" exploits at karaoke. I will pass on the movie review of that. We listen to the soundtrack Henry burned and we run into the deadtime problem again with too much of certain songs. Oh well, we still fit the 3 minute time limit. Saturday Noon: Meeting for the masquerade is at noon. We turned in all our music and luckily didn't have to worry about the soundtracks since everything was on the computer. The USA Musume girls went to do more rehearsal while Henry and I went back to the room to finish off the Hikaru costume. But not before we took some Jackie Chan Adventures cosplay pictures. XD Pyxie went out to get Chinese food and Ami brought it back up and we all worked on cosplay together with her working on her Arashi. We couldnt tolerate too much of the food cos of the pre-masquerade jitters. Tiff and I split a chicken chow mein and even then we couldn't finish it. Saturday Evening. It's 5 and time to suit up. I actually hadn't tried the Wizard costume on once yet, so I cross my fingers and it fits alright! But lets see, at my shoulder, I have an undershirt, the vinyl Wizard undershirt, a double layer jacket, and three additional layers inside to keep the shape of the shoulders. And the entire costume is vinyl so it's incredibly hot in there. We get to sit in the green room with all the other cosplayers and there was plenty of room. Went outside a few times to cool down, watch USA Musume rehearsals and Angelic Layer rehearsals. Mochi and Grandis were there this year and I got to talk to them again! They remarked that I likked a sofa to make the Wizard. And of course I took cute pictures with little Sara Hikaru and friend. Yay! Paul from Mochi asked me how many sofas I killed to make the Wizard costume. There's an intermission between novice and veteran. AGSMA representation is group number 19. Rock me, I'm a deus. I wonder how many people got the reference to Angelic Layer. The routine went quite well. Henry and Annie loved wearing the cool Angelic Layer headsets I made for the skit. And the audience really liked it when the Wizard and Hikaru came out on stage to face off. On to Koi no Dance site where the audience would finish the HA when the soundtrack went UN! But the best response was to voice acting Henrietta and "Behold the Power of the Sexy Beam". And of course "Congratulations!". Once all the pictures were taken after the skit was done, Hichan and I rushed to change out. Wizard is a two person costume to put on simply cos I cannot zip myself up with those huge shoulders. And I can't raise my arms above my head anyway. But we go crazy trying to change out. I was so hot from the Wizard outfit that my inner shirt was drenched. Drenched as in I could wring out sweat. And I had to pat dry the inside of the Wizard outfit. And into the Miami Vice style suit that I had bought the day prior for $2.50. Super cool! I went down with Annie to rejoin the rest of USA Musume and I tried to spray my hair gold. Didn't work that great but there was some tint to it. Kix showed me the Tsunku pictures that she got in Japan so I'd know what poses to take. Dewprism with the Neko Twins and Karrie was 23 and their skit was so cute! Then they had to change out too and join up downstairs in the dressing rooms. USA Musume is entry #40. I go out to announce them with my super bad Engrish. That went so well! I look like I'm so out of Miami Vice in that suit and red sunglasses. Poor Ami tripped on her shoe in the first line and went down hard but everyone picked up by the third line and Ami got right back up and into the routine. That's a strong girl! About halfway into the song, the microphones pick up sensitivity and you can start hearing the girls sing and that was excellent. The crowd at Fanime was really good. Saturday Night. During the award waiting time we took hordes of pictures with the Peace outfits. So many pictures that we didn't go back to the room in time almost for then the awards were really announced. And the best thing happened at the awards, USA Musume won best Technical! Yay! We did it cos we all ove Morning Musume and it was fun! We also got a pair of Flint, Time Detective DVDs which the girls just passed down and down until I got it and stashed it in my jacket. Got some crowd response from that too. Allie shows up and we have her change into Kei and take even more pictures. We file out, takes lots of pictures again but now it's hunger time. Poor Hichan is super zombie like and she has no appetite. That's a big problem, cos she must be really sick. Probably all that lack of sleep for the past 3 days. As we were leaving Dennys, the air was about 60 degrees and we were complaining about how cold it was. So Henry has to go and drop his pants in public to demonstrate his resistance to cold. O_o. Sunday Morning. We're still in our Musume outfits and we all head over to Denny's for an interview with Grandis. Even though the food was bad and the wait was worse, the interview was great fun! Dom, Henry, Phavo, BSL, Tiff, Allie, Ami and Justin were at one table and the other table had Annie, Kimi (comatose), Albert, Karrie. We all returned to the room and were all dead tired. We tried for a while to get the VCR running to see the skits that Albert taped so nicely for us but there were protectors on the TV which prevented us from hooking anything up. So we finally gave up and had to kick iPLAY off the girls's bed and Albert and friend from the guys bed, where Henry was already sleeping. Lucky for me, Hikkles is small and so I slept at the foot of the bed and not the floor with Allie's sweater as a blankie. Sunday. Henry leaves early (which is about 9) He moved all his stuff over to temporary holding. Allie wakes up at 10:30 and her flights at 11. Woosh goes Allie. She nearly forgets her black top. I get up and shower and suit up in Oujirou to finish my first set of film. I didn't even go outside for very long since I wanted to pack everything. Then Hichan woke up and changed into Hikaru so I got into the Wizard outfit and we took lots of pictures. We had a nice photo session with Lionel and then went to the dealer's room where Dr. Hikaru let us in to find Albert. On the way out of the dealers the news people were interviewing Ikuhara and asked us and Tiffy in Chun Li to be their cosplay wallpaper. We were briefly interviewed in the dealer's hall as well. It was fun being cosplay wallpaper but this was one of the things stopping us from trying to get to the room so we could try and call Wuken for a set of uber good pictures. We finally got back to the room but Wuken was already on the way back. We surpassed the check out time of 1 PM so we changed out and packed everything up and cleaned up the room somewhat. All the left over Chinese food, scraps of vinyl. We went and got some of the hotel hand lotion and figured out that it was a ginger smell. Hichan took it home so she could fill the bottle with paper stars. Anywhere USA Musume went, there were shed feathers. hee hee. I saw Janelle on the way out. >.< I will have to catch her at AX, we missed our couple cosplay. We then all went to lunch at Sizzler but had to cut short due to the time being 3:45 and Hichan and I had similar flight times. So I packed up my shrimp dinner and Hichan her half rack of ribs and we were on the way to the airport. The check in line wasn't too bad but security was! Hichan forgot to move her scissors so they confiscated them! ;_;. Also, her flight got delayed for almost an hour. But we all got home safe, every last one and now it's time to clod down and sleep. 2001 AniMagic 2001 Location: Best Western Hotel, Lancaster, California Friday: Arrive at 2:30 after some misdirected Yahoo directions. But I locate a Joanns, Target, TRU on the way in so I know exactly where all the supplies are. Meet up with Anthy and Allie and Gina and they get a room in 384. Near where the room was last year. EWWWWWW It's small and only has one bed. Tiffy and Kinki are still working on their costumes back in LA so I'm on my own. I hang out while Allie and Anthy get into their Chun Li outfits and finally get the room. Ouuu! it's 116, and a prime location. Near 168, iPLAY and it's right outside the Japanese gardens, and near a parking area. I get a super kewl parking spot right behind the room. I hang Haunter in the window so the room is easily identifiable. Also it's a corner room and we don't have a neighbor on one side so it's awesome. Once the weather cools down I get into Hayato and walk around with the Chun Li's. At the masquerade registration they call me in to check on something and the con ops guy was like "Can I trade places with you?" That was funny. We spent about an hour in the game room too, I was playing XvsSF and taking names while Anthy and Allie were waiting for their chance to DDR. I got a few pics of them DDRing in Chun Li per requests. Allie is the hardcore DDR queen in Chun Li. We take some pictures, talk to some people and when dinner rolls around, we get the Neko twins, Allie, Anthy, Matt and his friend to go to CoCo's for dinner. Kinki and Tiffy had just arrived but stay behind to sew. We will get them take out. The waiter totally sucked. It took us 4 times to get water, and we went through half the meal without napkins or silverware. Silly Phavo wearing Chizuru. Can't get her costume dirty! No pasta. heee. And at the end when we were supposed to get the to-go items, he forgot and had them make them so we had to wait even longer! And the Fish and Chips I had weren't that good. Arrrrrrrr! We got back and found to be locked out of the room. So we left the food in 384 but found Kinki and Tiffy at karaoke. We got the keys from them and started to work on costumes again. Anthy and I dressed up in the Love Hina costumes but it's so sad, we didn't take pictures again cos we were so busy. I prepped the chess board so all the pieces would stay in place. Still no suitable table for the chess set tomorrow. Thank god for Justin's wig styling. He styled the Sinbad wig after getting some pictures of Sinbad from the iPLAY VCR. Of course to thank iPLAY for using their VCR, I took dead Kurt Cobain pictures for them (whatever that means, it meant alot to them hee hee) The wig is a little short in the back but otherwise awesome. Kelly decides not to dye her hair after all. Kinki and Tiffy burn the midnight oil working on Ayu kitty costumes and Anthy continues to work on her Jeanne. Saturday: GAH! It's 3 AM and people are still working! *refuses to stay up* Oh but it's so hard when I wake up every hour due to noise. I finally re-awaken at 9 AM and I missed Jackie Chan Adventures! AAaaaaa! Oh well. I get into Movie Li and find Sara and Emi and we go back to take pictures in the garden. Oh so cute! But so hot too so I get out of costume again. Anthy wakes up and gets into Kero girl and we go visit Steve Bennett and schmooze. Hand out ACP business cards! Weeeeeee! Anthy rolls her eyes. I change into Hayato to match Hichan's Akira and Matt's Kuro and we take action shots. So cool! Irvy animates Hichan doing pushups. But that gets hot too and we change out while getting ready for the 2 PM masquerade rehearsal. Thank goodness we are entry 7. We drop off our soundtrack and get cracking. We go to KFC to get lunch (chicken strips) and Joanns for fray check and head back. I don't change for the longest time, but instead take pictures of Phavo chan in Yun and schmooze some more. Finally I decide to get into Sinbad and finish getting in that before Anthy gets into Jeanne. But Anthy still has her hair to fix. Craftsmanship judging is at 6 PM and Kelly's boot ribbons aren't done. Natalie is such a lifesaver by fixing those in the judging area. After our judging by Char and Yaya we head back to "rehearse" and finish putting on Jeanne. I have Lionel take some solo pictures of me in Sinbad in the gardens in the good light with the boomerang, since the boomerang was too fragile and broke already once. Masquerade starts on time. PSeed goes on third. We're number 7 and the skit goes well until.... the chess board falls over. X_X. Ouch. Well that and Anthy forgot to face the audience and judges more. So intead of me running off with the chessboard, I have to pick it up and drag alot of the pieces away. In the end, we're missing a brown pawn. ARRRRRR. Oh well. It's super sculpyable. I also cameo for KinKi's and Tiffy's skit which I helped to script in the hours prior to the masquerade. That was extremely cute. After all said and done, we all went out for CoCo's dinner again, this time, no Allie, Matt but we add on iPLAY, Yaya, Tiffy and Kinki. It was so much fun and the service was much better this time. He remembered everything this time. It was cute cos Kinki and Tiffy and Yaya and Phavo were all still in their cosplay outfits. After we head back we change out of our outfits and plan on a masquerade tape viewing at iPLAYs room. Sunday: It's midnight and we're watching the masquerade all over again. No one heeds Anthy's and my request to fast forward through our skit. WAh. We get thru the entire masquerade but are so tired we leave after the last act on the tape and pass out in room 116 at about 2 AM. It is such a slow day today. I woke up briefly at 8 when Kelly decides to leave for room 384 again. ^_^;;;; She's basically stayed with us the entire time. I didn't change into costume since it was hot and I just packed everything away. Anthy and I left come 1:30 since we're headed for Disneyland! So we said bye to everybody and left happy room 116 with what we thought to be all our worldly possessions to head to the Happiest Place on Earth. We actually arrive at 3 PM on the dot. (pretty good traffic from Lancaster). Anthy breaks down and gets a deluxe pass. We fast pass Indiana Jones and head over to look at the new Haunted Mansion. The line is sooooooooo long at 75 minutes. X_X. We would fast pass but we thought Tiffy and Annie would show up. So while we're waiting for the Indy fast pass to enable, we register Anthy's annual. When that's done, we finish Indy and are about to fast pass Haunted when Annie calls. Annie is on her way. So we stroll around eventually heading to the front gates to meet Annie with her annual. We all make a straight line for Haunted but the fast passes have expired on that ride since the wait is so long now. We fast pass BTR and go on Star Tours with a 10 minute wait. Afterwards, fast pass Space Mountain and we subjected Anthy to Honey I Shrunk the audience. Hit Space Mountain and fast pass Autopia. While we're waiting for that we eat at French Market. 2 Shrimp Etouflee and 1 chicken dinner and 1 CCCCWS. Anthy manages to skip half her chicken dinner but she completes her CCCCWS without intervention. We threaten her all night with trips to Small World but she is spared. We hit Autopia and then standby for Nightmare Before Christmas Haunted Mansion. It's soooo cool! They revised alot of the ride and took out some of the old animatronics. It's quite well done. The park closes at 9 so we all go, and I take Anthy up to Tiffy's to drop her off there. Monday: I didn't get to sneak out yesterday, so I went to California Adventure today for the expressed purpose to play Millionaire. The first question was the fastest fingers thingy about Jane Austin. *bomb* no way I was getting that one. And so the other guy was up and at the check point, I was in second place. And the guy fails and they look to see who's next. Yay! 304! Me! (The host was the same one from last month but he didn't remember who I was). I only got to 2000 this time cos I was nailed on a question about cars though. I now know that a town car has a glass division to separate the passengers, and not a stock car. So I came home with another hat, lanyard, button and 5 collectible pins! San Diego Comic Convention Location: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego and Embassy Suites, California Friday: First things first. Went over to SJ HQ and picked up Reichan cos Makochan left days before. Left about 9 AM to arrive in SD at about 10:45. We made some really good time. Traffic wasn't too bad. We went to the airport to scope out where we'd pick up Tiffy (Terminal 2) and decided we needed to kill some time before her 12:30 pick up. So Reichan and I were going to go to the beach for a nice walk and picnic. But right as we were leaving the airport, I got a ring from Genri's cell. He had arrived early! He wasn't supposed to get here until 1:30. Geez. Mess up our picnic. Oh well. We grab Genri from commuter terminal and go to the Embasssy to check in. Our room isn't ready (730) and so we need to head back to the car. Did I mention that parking at the Embassy is not for the claustrophobic? All the cars there are crammed in and I had to make like a 20 point turn (Austin Powers style) to get out. We didn't have enough time to run to the convention to get badges so we went to the beach anyway for the picnic before Tiffy arrived. While we were eating peanut butter sandwiches and soda, we were watching and making references to a bunch of pigeons near by. hee hee. At 12:30 we drove over to Terminal 2 but no Tiffy. Since it only took 5 minutes to get from the terminal to the beach, we went back to the beach and waited, guessing that Tiffy would call the instant she arrived wondering where we are. 1:00 rolls around and we figure she's delayed so we send our peace offering Genri to see what the deal is. She was delayed and she had just got off and found Genri when she was calling us. We went back to Embassy and found out our room still wasn't ready so it's off on the tram to the convention center. Justin was waiting there at the lobby for us and we drag him along. Tiffy and Gina got their badges but Genri and I wanted to wait for the 4 PM late badge fee. So they went to wander the dealers room while Genri and I went to Horton Plaza to look for the new Final Fantasy Movie figs. They did have them, but only the 7" variety and they were fugly. 4 PM rolls around and we head back to the convention center. Now we've added Riri and Emily to the group in their slayers dresses. We finally go get our badges. I settle on the 3 day after all to avoid any further hassle. We all head back to the room to change. I get into Hayato and the sideburns fit with help of eyelash glue. Tiff's been in Kyoko all day. Justin dresses up as Kuja. Reichan as Kaede. Genri falls asleep. 6 PM rolls around and we're back at the convention center in costume. Reichan and I run into scary ninja guy and Reichan quickly learns to find a distraction. "Oh Genri!" And we're free! 7 PM rolls around and we meet everyone for pictures, so we add on Dai, Joe and Taiki. We go upstairs to take some pictures and come down at 7:15 to walk to the Old Spaghetti factory. They don't take reservations and they say a table for 12 will be 1 hour. Many people stay behind and wait, but the restless Genri, Reichan and I tour the city for the hour. On the way back, we get a call....Allie's arrived. Horribly late. We instruct her to grab a tram and we all head back to the dinner. Everyone else has been seated for 15 minutes. But that's kewl. We all order at the same time and dinner was good. All the people were staring at Justin. I'm surprised they let him in. After dinner we part ways, Gina comes with us to the Embassy to get some stuff to bring to her place. Connie and Chris come to pick her up at 10. Afterwards I take Justin on a run (You owe me Justin!) to get his Lucifer outfit. We go through some quick rehearsals in the hallway and retire late as usual. Saturday: It's the big day of the convention. We get up at 10 and haul to the 10:30 masquerade meeting. That finishes early but the turning in tape and materials took us an hour. We got our backstage passes and then we were out of there. Back to the Embassy for dress rehearsal. Allie rehearsed in dark pantyhose and her swimsuit. ^_^;;;; Then we change into costume. Me into Butch, but I forgot my Jedite gloves so I make due with Hayato's. Henry as Pink Pirate. Justin as Gekka, Tiffy as Mana and Allie as Dakki. We head over to Anthony' Fish Grotto forgetting that Allie hates seafood. Lucky for us she found they had chicken sandwiches. We take pictures in front of the Star of India Pirate ship, exceedingly good for Genri. Dining at the Grotto is interesting, with all sorts of people staring at us. Especially Justin who can't eat with 4 inch nails. He mooches food from the rest of us. I had a chowder combo with a sandwich. The clam chowder was so good. Genri cancelled going to the Spiderman panel and 4 PM was rolling around. I was supposed to meet Reichan at the Embassy at 4 PM and since they weren't picking up their cells, I left the Grotto early in order to meet her on time. So I don't even bother with the tram and walk to the Embassy from the Grotto, scratching up my cell phone in the process. That totally sucked. I arrived on time, but Reichan never came. I got a call about an hour later stating that she needed to meet me elsewhere. I took a nap. All my stuff was packed and ready to go. Everyone comes back at about 5:30 and in preparation, 6 comes along before we know it. We need to book all this stuff to the SDCC! We arrive at SDCC at 6:30 but all the dressing rooms were taken. So the bathroom was the dressing room. Luckily for us, we were entry 40. Alita, Benma and P. Kuno were also in preparations for their skit, and they sure did have last minute preparations on Spam. They were entry 28. There was of course Team Rocket, and a cool SNK vs. Capcom skit with Mai and Yun. They both knew their trademark moves and stances. Must recruit for ACP. ^_^. Our skit went off without a hitch, and got good crowd response, especially with the Yap yap yap kick. No one could here the "Good work girls, now enjoy the convention" business at the end due to the laughter left over from the ultimate attack. After 50 entries, and re-enactments and various group pictures, we find out we won. I'm guessing industry award and I'm right. We get the award from Anime Pavilion, which totally shocks Allie and Tiffy. We send Henry to get the award which he is happy to do. We had alot of interviews and pictures taken. Avoided near disaster backstage with scary guy again. After all is said and done, we meet up with Karrie, Jon, Hichan, Natsume and Kurumi. Hichan was in her cute Mima outfit. We took even more pictures before heading back to Embassy. Hichan decided to stay with us instead of driving back. Hichan, Allie and Tiffy were going to sit in the hot tub while Genri and I went to TGIF to get potato skins. All the restaurants in the gaslamp district were closed at 1 AM but there was one place open. *shining light at the Jack in the Box* 24 hour service. OOOOOOOH. Genri finally gets his Ultimate Cheeseburger and it's good. Everyone else, we get cheese and bacon potatoes for Tiffy, chicken sandwiches galore and double chocolate cake (the closest thing to CCCCWS). Afterwards, we all pass out. Except Hichan who scares away some weird stalker guy. Hichan's still hyper so I don't know what she does after I go to sleep. Sunday: Everyone needs to leave early! Hichan forgoes her practice to sleep in some. But Henry must leave in haste to catch his flight. He forgets his dress pants in the process but thank god he gets his codpiece. We all pack and get lost in a hurry at 11 AM. I just throw all my stuff in the car with full intention of going back to the convention center. I see the rest of them off when my tram arrives before Richard can leave. I head over to DM's booth to see Chrissy and she tells me Reichan just woke up. >.< So I tour the dealers room by myself for a few hours until she does show up. We go searching for Chrissy's Saint Seiya stuff since she is infatuated with it. We pick up some stuff, as the rest of the stuff is ridiculously priced. The dealers room closes at 5 PM so we meet up with Connie and Chris. We sneak a trolley to the parking stop and Reichan/I were dropped off at Horton. We go to eat at Planet Hollywood. They changed a little bit since 2 years ago, mainly the menu has been made boring. Guess it was out of date. Afterwards Reichan and I do some more shopping at Horton but very soon, all the stores close up. Chrissy calls and she's done. We wait 40 minutes for the Comic Expo tram to take us all to the Wyndham. We leave Chrissy there to gather her stuff while Reichan and I go to the Embassy to get my car. Back to pick up Chrissy and on the way home, find.... traffic. X.X It takes 2 hours to get home to their home, I drop them off and return to my home. All in all, a very good experience. Anime Expo 10 Location: Long Beach Hyatt and Convention Center, Long Beach, California Wednesday. One day early. I swear, I've never done this before. Just two days prior I decided I'd work on my Movie 2 Li Syaoran costume. ^_^;;;; I guess I always have to have a last minute costume. No matter what the circumstances. My competition piece was done one week prior, the AniMagic release Hayato was done 3 days ago, and Butch was ready by Fanime. So I get lost in Long Beach, but finally arrive at the Hyatt, after multiple cell phone calls. I bring along a large supply of soda and a little junk food since I knew there was going to be some major starvation going on. That and 5 new costumes, 2 old ones, and the uncompleted Li. When I arrived, Kelly, Gina and Frank were at the pool but quickly retreated due to "hairy back guy in jacuzzi". It is July the 4th, and dinner was rapidly approaching. I ate dinner already when I arrived at 7 but with the fireworks and crowds at Long Beach, dinner for everyone else would be a long time coming. Tamachan was immediately accosted by Kelly. While the Change Card scared Gina with it's extending tongue action. Our room was 1036. I spent most of the night with crazy heat n bond action working on the Li costume. We didn't go to sleep until 3 that day. I claimed the couch bed the first night. Thursday: First real day of the con. Totally did not feel like it after Wednesday. Early on, I drop off the soundtrack and confirm our spot in the masquerade, switch from standby status. Today is the Rival Schools day but first I need to pick up my badge. So I walk with Tiffy and Mack to the Westin and pass poor Phavo chan Kyoko in the hall. "I'll be back soon!" One hour later that is. Got into Hayato and once and again, I hate fake sideburns. They kept on falling off. After I took the requisite pictures, I axed them since I didn't want to keep picking them up. I liked having Shinai D'Wayne around tho. There were like 2 other Hayatos around and plenty of random shinai welding people. We took pictures of Justice Gakuen with Albert and Phavo and requisite push up/back nailing pictures. Then Phavo, Henry and I decided to go to the dealers room. But it was raining. X_X. Kelly was in Miyu walking barefoot the long way around to the dealers room. Henry in Gene with red dripping down his face and costume. Phavo in Kyoko. Gina in bright orange Naruto and me in iridescent rainbow Hayato which reflects water. The line for the dealers room was huge, and so we were going to head back when me and Henry saw a little back entrance. So Phavo, Henry and I worked our way into the dealers room. heeeeeeee. Not a bad size as far as dealers rooms go. It looks alot larger than it really is due to the artists alley in the back. We went looking for KinKi and Kelly, but we skipped one of the first rows (The one with KinKi). We saw Kelly in the last row, near Aloha Anime. We also visited the artists alley to see Kyubi Kitsy and AKG studios. Very nice. After getting out of Hayato I was normal, but then changed into Jedite for the Sera Myu panel. Sera Myu version of course. That was going on at 4 and I sat with Cindy who was all ready to ask corny questions. -_-. I had to restrain her from doing so and embarassing us. Afterwards, Char got me my Jedite-chan yellow wig so I wouldn't look like Cruise Blues Jedite. I'm really not meant to be blonde. Afterwards was the female cosplayers panel and japanese cosplayer panel. Kelly and I changed into our Love Hina costumes and made an effort to find it. We walked in at the last minute and decided not to stay around. We left to get supplies for the room including ramen and Popeye's fried chicken for dinner. That was a good dinner. But the Vons we went to was totally ghetto. It took us forever to locate the ramen and not only that, it was completely gated. Yeh. Great neighborhood. Allie and Ashy had arrived and were changing. After that, I spent the rest of the night chatting and working on Li. Well that and egging KinKi to finish her masquerade costume too. Friday: The only real thing that would happen today is King of Fighters Friday. In the daytime, I changed into Laguna (which was delivered the day prior by Northern Campus AGSMA) and took pictures with SJ at the Aloha booth. Had ramen for lunch (which was about 4 PM ^_^;;;;) and then Allie and I figured it was a good time to get ready for King of Fighters Friday. It was so goddamn huge! I've never seen so many Terrys, Kyo's and Ioris. All I cared about really was getting the Orochi Team pictures, and we had some really cool pictures with Matt's Orochi. After KOF night, I finished the Li costume, and kept on harassing KinKi to finish her costume. *omitted stuff* Henry did teach me the moves for the skit and we sat outside watching the Moulin Rouge video, as well as a few others. We also made Jack out of poster board from an prize that Mack won but didn't want. Some J Pop thing. We used left over baroque satin from Li for Jack's hat and other odds and ends. A quick headband and Jack would stay on someone's head. No way the beachball idea would have worked. 2D South Wars style Jack was the way to go. Definitely. Benma arrived earlier in the day and we worked on his choreography. He also dressed up in Kelly's version 1 Beryl. -_- Kelly tried to dye her hair red, but it only succeeded in turning the bathtub red and giving her a fine tint. Good thing Mack has red hair spray. Before then, Kelly and I took Chun Li/Li photo shoots on the top floor of the convention center, with no one else to bother us or try to peace bond the weapons. That was nice. I hope those photos come out good. Saturday: Oh today is the big day. We all file up for the 10 AM meeting well except for Matt who was in a coma and KinKi who lost her badge. The meeting was standard pre-convention meeting. And there was another one to be held at 4 PM to look at the theatre. In between time, I went to change into Butch and grabbed Victreebel and took pictures with my Cassidy and Sabrina. $3 Pizza for lunch. Time flew by before we knew it and it was time for the 4 PM meeting. KinKi didn't want to go and wanted to show up exactly at 7 when it was time to start cos she needed that much time to do the costume. ARRRR. That meeting was good to show us the lay out of the small stage and backstage. Alita and Jorge were both there as backstage helpers. That was nice of them. They're on sabbatical for a while. We head back to find out KinKi has only made minimal progress on the costume, and with only two hours left, it's up to the team to crank out a Britney Moon costume. We borrow Kelly's Miyu obi for a bow, Allie's pendant, and Kelly's Suppy top. No time for fraying edges, Britney Moon's meant to look skanky. KinKi worked on the wig while Henry worked on the collar. We used some Hayato athletic tape for the stripes (so ghetto!) Benma tied the bow up. With some work, the costume, although skanky and ghetto was presentable. Due to problems with the bow, we had to attach it directly to the Suppy top. It was 6:45 PM and we had to haul to get to the convention center. They blocked off the shortcut so we had to walk all the way around to get to the entrance. We barely arrived at 7 PM before everyone else was let in. Mainly due to Kelly's Beryl and low mobility. We got in and went to the far back dressing room where we rehearsed for the first time as a full group. I had pretty much gotten down my moves, but this would be the first time for KinKi to know about her moves. Luckily they were really easy moves. We used to be entry 33 but bumped up to 30 from all the drop outs. By the time we got on stage, they started our music early and so the first part of the skit was edited out. KinKi had to run on stage and start. Other than that, the skit went remarkably well. Good audience response. There was some confusion about winning for us, but in the end, we didn't win anything for the skit. Perfectly fine with us as the audience was good this time around and the skit was sorta inside joke for fans of the boy bands. I dont expect people not familiar with the Meaty Cheesy Boys to know what the hell we were doing on stage. Afterwards we came back to change! Kelly's feet were totally bruised up from the walking. And we were all requisite cranky. AMC won two awards which was totally cool for them especially how they were robbed last year. We ordered out Jack in the Box but I just had some pinapple and dwelled on the situation. All night. Since people were up in our room, Kelly and I invaded Tiffy's room and took up floor space. Sunday: Saturday was pretty much the last day of the con for me. I was pondering dressing up as Li or Zato again, but then just got plain lazy. The Fashion Show was not what I expected and thus the ACP photo was a bust. Wasn't a smart idea since the stage was very small and there was a ton of photographers and the fashion show was an hour long. I left the con at about 1 PM. But then Kelly, Henry, Gina and Frank all went to Disneyland at 6 PM. I joined up with them at 7 PM after meeting PSeed at the tram stop. That was totally a coincidence. We went on Pirates/Haunted and then went to eat at Zocalo. I got Kelly's CCCCWS as promised from Cafe Orleans, but Henry took one of her last bites. So she didn't complete it. Then we went to Peter Pan, Mr. Toad, Alice, Tea Cups and we subjected Kelly to Small World. She had the song stuck in her head but I guess that's not as bad as some of the songs that were going on the weekend. We dropped by the Downtown Disney to get caramel apples. Anytime Kelly saw any sweets she was freaked espesh after her CCCCWS. Tiffy was incredibly tired so we retreated. I took Hichan's burnt toast present to give to her at a later date. Fanime Con Location: Santa Clara Westin Hotel and Santa Clara Convention Center, San Jose, California Saturday Early Morning. Very early morning. We're talking 4:00 in the AM. Heh heh. I finish up the trim on Li Syaoran's sword. Wooo! The first time I make the sword after the costume and actually finish both before the convention! I pack it up in my new trusty gun-case which I bought for $7 specifically for prop sword transporting reasons. ^_^ This will be sooooooooooooo cool. Saturday Morning: Check in two luggages (a tote and a guncase). The guy had me open the gun case and asked if sparred with that sword. Ha Ha.... No. Hop on Southwest Airlines at 8:30 and arrive at San Jose airport at 9:40. I thought I had packed everything. So no worries. I went to prepare my Clow cards by putting them together front and back. Managed to get my 45 cards done since I didn't like the remaining 7. I packed them in my one carry on. I was dressed in Shinji top with Touya pants. But no one's gonna be able to tell. Plane flight uneventful. I was totally out to lunch until I arrived. And yay! Allie was on time to pick me up from the airport. I had to go to the special desk to reclaim the gun case, but the other baggage was ready and came quick. Now to find the MCM. No musical shuttles this time. She parked in the right concourse. But uh.... Which side of the parking structure. So now was the search for the MCM. Of course, we walked to the wrong side first so we circled the entire circumference of the parking structure before hitting the MCM. That's when I find out we're supposed to be there at 10 for Masquerade check in. Good thing Kelly and Henry were there. Yep yep. I use the cell phone to contact AGSMA Northern division and they were on their way. Perfect. Looks like smooth sailing. So I thought. We don't arrive at the Westin until 10:30. But it's good, I got some catching up time with Allie. Allie didn't have her badge either so we were in the same boat. As we drove by the hotel we realized how incredibly hot it was outside. And the huge line for the dealers room. Erk. This is supposed to be a winter type con. I brought mostly winter type outfits. Well except one. ^_-. Head up to the room and find out that Henry's been DDRing all night and now he's MIA. On the way up, I see Rei-chan's shooting star and motion to her that I'm around. They want me to get into Laguna but I got some pressing matters to fix first. Like registration. I get my reg, and pick up Allie's pre-reg. And we need to find our soundtrack and give it to the staff so they can copy it to a master. Aaaaaaaar! Me and Kelly go on a Cookie Monster Man hunt. I quickly change into Touya and find myself requiring a picture with cutey Sara in her Sakura outfit. A scale Sakura to my Touya! WOoooo! Anyways. No trace of Henry at the DDR room. Maybe he went to the masquerade meeting place. Kelly and I must have made three separate trips to and fro that place looking for Henry. On our second trip, we had just barely missed up so we thought he headed back to the meeting hall. Of course he wasn't there. But when we came back, Henry was in dream land. We inquisition him for the soundtrack and go off to deliver it. Excuse northern AGSMA division to go goof off until later for rehearsal. So phew, we are the last to turn in our tape but we make it. Kelly and I decide we need to errrrr, finish her costume and cards for the skit so that's what we do. She goes to work on her wings, outlining them, and I trim off my manga style clow cards. That's finished real easily. We let Henry sleep until he's rested. I finish before Kelly so I start working on the prop Clow Cards made of foam core. Saturday Noon: Henry and Kelly managed to finish the backs of most the cards with red and yellow stars (with finger painting!). Unfortunately we need to retrieve the cards from the meeting place. X_X. Another trip. Also.... "Henry, where's the tape of the soundtrack to rehearse with?" Uhhhhhhh. So we have to ask the nice masquerade staff to copy it right then and there so we can practice with the CD. They graciously do that and we bring the unfinished cards back to room 625. What remains is the names of the cards on the other side. Gawd. (mustn't let Kelly continue designing the cards. I get a sharpie and rescue what Kelly was working on the Song Card. Next comes Dark, Light, Shot, Voice, Visa. We're kicked out of 627 for Malice Mizer rehearsal. Alright it's 3 and we track down the rest of the team for Rehearsal! We try to rehearse near the meeting place but they kick us out. We can't rehearse in last years room because it's now the dealers room. So we were going to rehearse in the room, but Tiffy was changing in 627 and Matt was changing in 625. So we rehearse in the hallway with many interruptions from people and the house cleaners. We work out the choreography and move the Light/Dark sequence to earlier on in the skit due to dead time in the skit. Good thing we had Catch You Catch Me as the back ground music since the girls knew all the words and could base all the cues from it. They love Love Machine and we grudgingly make Yukito and Nakuru do the back up to that song. She bangs moves were also perfected. Another script change was now Touya would set Kero up for a punt by Li. Kelly still refused to jump inanely at the end to the Groovy song, but now we change the ending so that Yukito will smile and follow Touya off stage as Touya runs. And the Yaoi card will now be flipped at the WOO! in Groovy. It all looks like it will work out nicely. Of course it's 3 PM and none of us have eaten anything. So Kelly and I stay behind and mooch food in the room while the rest go outside to Taco Bell and get baby powder to change our Yukito. While I'm eating, I finish designing the Fanservice and American Express cards. Kelly fixes her ears and starts putting on her Kero girl costume. I go to get my shorts that I'd wear underneath the Li costume from my Zato costume but find.....AAAAAAAAAAh. I forgot them. X_X And the spandex pants for Zato I forgot too. Crap! What am I going to do. No one else has shorts that can fit me, so I end up rolling my pants up and using 3 safety pins on each side to make them shorts and wear Li over them. X_X. Everyone says I'm so cute. errrrr. Especially with the lil hat. Oi. We need to be at the meeting place at 7, but we get conflicting reports of needing to be there at 6. We decide not to chance it and head there at 6:15. Hardly anyone there. But people already getting seated. What the heck! Finally it dawns on us that people are getting seated for the Mari Ijima concert. So we really weren't due until 7. So Kelly and I go off walking around and get stopped.... alot. We meet up with Tiffy, KinKi, Ashy and Mack in their Malice Mizer gear. They look so great! We tour around some more and head back to lay claim to a room backstage. Saturday Evening. It's 7 and time to show up. They expect us all to fit in the Green Room? HAHAHAHAHAH. Kelly and I set up camp outside the water cooler and are soon joined by AMC/NCC. First thing to go is the Individual walk ons. 13 of them. 14 dropped out. And before we know it, we were called to get inline. Ugh, we need to fight to get our props in order to line up. We're 25. iPLAY is 24 in their fantastic Guilty Gear outfits. Without my Zato spandex, I didn't know how I'd change into Zato later for group shots with them. After us was Phoenix Seed with their Animal Magnetism/Digimon/FF9 costumes, then AMC/NCC with Malice Mizer and then SJ as skit 31. With a couple skits in between. iPLAY goes up with their Guilty Gear musical Bemani games skit. Everything is there, including Space Channel 5. And finally we're up. Kelly, Henry, Kevin and I are on one side and the rest of the girls (Eriol, Nakuru and Little card start on stage left). Good thing our Little card knew the cue and she went to plant the Kero and the fanservice card. Music starts on cue. Everything proceeds smoothly since I didn't bring on any clow cards or incantation cards. The audience loves it when Nakuru glomps Touya. Li starts off with the lasin board on stage and Little gets the right cue to run away. We actually get some boos (as well as cheers) for kicking Kero off stage. He got some serious hangtime. Voice card isn't yelled out but the effects are far reaching. The audience KNOWS about the American Cardcaptors theme. I go to replace the lasin board with the sword and at the right cue, out comes Kero girl! Whoa, the audience response is great. Dark is casted but not called out, but Light wasn't casted fast enough. Not a big deal. Song card is next but.... X_X Dead time. So we improvise. And then Love Machine busts out, and Henry "Love Machine" Genjitsu breaks out in a wild dance. He loses the jacket and tie and does strange dance moves with Kelly with the tie.... Totally improvised. X_X. But it gets a good response. Next up is Shot. She bangs, even tho Kelly won't admit it, she loves it. And the sound cues of She bangs were coordinated to attacks and She moves for evasive manuevers. Now for the final cards. I drop the sword and waste some time getting ready, rolling up my sleeves, cracking neck and knuckles. I pick up the Visa and keep and announce that I will use the most powerful card.... and right when the music starts. I shout Credit Card! Great response. Eriol whips out American Express. Henry says his line but Tomoyo states her line before Nakuru.... oops. Still good. Li leaves with Kero girl, and Eriol leaves with Nakuru. Leaving Tomoyo and the upper classmen. Tomoyo picks up this last card lying around and right at the WOO! of Groovy, she flips it to reveal the Yaoi card. She shows it to the audience then then shows it to the upperclassmen. Touya freaks and bolts, while Yukito smiles and slowly follows. Great response. Overall, a great skit with our last minute prep and rehearsal. Saturday Night. Now it's time to wait. And wait and wait. The video room is full so we can't see the remaining skits. They have all the contestants get on stage prior to announcing the awards. We were kind of late so we sat in the front row in front of Malice and SJ on stage. AMC/NCC wins some superiority award. Kelly and I figured it was craftsmanship or something. They get to the judges awards and we were the second one announced! Yay! Must be the beginner's luck for our Northern Division half, combined a a whacked out script and the well versed knowledge of Card Captor Sakura in the audience. Od course the certificate we got for Der Cosplay doesn't have our name on it, just being blank but okay. We can take care of it. We also get a Gundam Endless Waltz DVD. Kelly snakes it since the rest of my group is quite passive. She promises to make us copies. Anyways, she flew all the way from New York to attend so it's a decent recompense. Also she had to put up with all the hecklers and stalkers as Kero girl which was quite amazing. It was a fiasco to try and get the ACP group picture done, but we took control of the microphone after the masquerade was over to get it done. We held it onstage mainly due to Hichan and Tikki's immobile costumes. I almost escaped being in the picture. Eventually Bennett pimp master himself also got in the picture. heh. Then it was disband time. We were going to take pictures but totally forgot about re-enactment pictures. We've been forgetting about those recently. Anyways, we made the mistake or correct decision to stay in the area to take pictures and soon.... We were all blinded. 20 minutes later, we were free again to head back to the rooms. OOooooo, free food. Must come down after dropping off stuff and changing. We got out like 11 PM? I guess? I lost total track of time about then. Sunday. Stroke of Midnight: Kelly and I are ready and I'm in half Touya gear again. We loiter downstairs looking for food, to only salvage some fruit punch. Then we take plenty of pictures of Kelly. Kelly got hit by that Japanese photographer with the little paper of English translations. ^_-. And he's followed by that ultra cute Misato. But it's not Zan from Tokyo Cosplay Zone 23 so I don't try to embarass myself. We even took pictures outside near the freezing water fountains. What was Kelly thinking. And all the time she wanted a drink from the bar. When we get back to the room to find cold ramen Kelly can't find her purse. So we go on a mad hunt for her purse. We were offered to go to Dennys with Albert or IHOP with the SJ girls, but with Kelly in her Kero girl outfit.... better not. We vouch to stay in the hotel. We also avoid the dance area since Kerogirl's wings have taken some damage already. After we head back we find out that Mack and Tiffy are heading up to iPLAY's room in 1042 to watch Albert's tape of the masquerade. Kelly finds her purse. Since we didn't want to sit around and wait to go thru all the other skits downstairs we decided it would be better to watch Albert's version, which we could fast forward. So since we're heading up to iPLAY's room, I decided to change into Zato to scare Tenken. I use my black slacks since I forgot the spandex. I have some problems with the bangs of the wig but figure out that I need to tuck them behind the mask. Everyone thinks I can't see thru my Zato mask. They are WRONG. But they take too long, so me and Kelly go downstairs to take some shots of Zato before we head up. The good thing about Zato is that no one knows it's me. I think Kelly's sick of taking my posed shots. She's lucky I don't know many of Zato's poses. hehhehehehe. And Zato does NOT have a slidekick. And Li definitely doesn't have one. iPLAY. We head back up to the room to find that Mack and Tiffy have returned. iPLAY got complaints that they were too loud so we'll need to watch the tape down in our room. Tenken's sick and already gone asleep so I can't scare her with Zato. Justin decides he wants to be Testament and Karrie as Ky. We go to 1047 to get the materials sans weapons and some fruit too (cos we're still starving). It takes some time for them to change so I head back down to the room to relax for a little bit without the Zato wig. That hair retains alot of heat! We watch the tape and fast forward thru icky skits. Daylight savings time hits us and wham, the masquerade is 2 hours long again hehehehehe. After the tape was completed, the Guilty Gear people head down to the arcade for a peak. But Kelly is so tired we make her take even more Guilty Gear pictures and head back up and retire at about 4:30 AM. I get the floor but use the white comforter like a sleeping bag. Sunday. I wake up first at about 9:20 and start getting ready some costumes. I can't find my freaking Syaoran shoes. Arrrgh! I turn the place upside down looking for those loafers. KinKi wants a Li Syaoran at 9:30. So I end up borrowing Matt's oversize loafers for the job. They still work, just a little on the big side. I find cutey KinKi and we have one of the artist gallery people take an assortment of AGSMA pictures for us. Cute Li and Sakura pictures. I head back up cos it's time for me to go to room 546 and change into Laguna for Chrissy and Gina. Argh. I see Henry on the way down and find out they've dropped Raquel chan at the room. Raquel chan is still too big, thanks to Mike. But the twins still have my Laguna boots and gun-chan. So I head to the room, no one answer and decide to go down. Only Chrissy is there. Evidently Gina is back up working on Shooting star chan again. So I head back up to get the boots and gunchan and we come back down together. No one else showed. We took some pictures but the SJ girls needed to get back into their hot pants costumes for their panel. So I head back to the room to return gunchan and raquel chan (now fixed cos of the magical straps in the back) and boots. I head back to my room and change into casual wear for once. Now it's super schmoozing time, as if I haven't done that all throughout this con. I got one of Gina's exhibitor passes so I could get into the panel without people bothering me. During the panel, sent Annie out and so I went too cos I wanted to see the dealers room. Came back during the Sera Myu videos but it was nice and dark, and I ended up falling asleep. ^_^;;;; I sneak out of there to meet up with Matt as a check point time. Matt, Hichan, Irvy and me were all going to share a cab to the SJC airport. I catch up with Kelly again and we go shopping. I get KinKi a chibi Bulleta for her White Day present. Saw Ikuhara and Mari around in person. Said bye to Aya and Tikki, and wow! Ran into Destiny (cutey Rinoa fangirl from last year). She couldn't get her Raine costume ready but that's okay. She has my E-mail and we can discuss AX plans on the net. I finally did end up finding my Li Syaoran shoes hiding at the head of Kelly's bed. I have no idea how they got all the way over there. I pack Matt's Venom pool cue with my sword in the guncase and get that ready to go. I'm so starved I eat at the hella expensive restaurant inside the hotel with SJ twins. I had a mushroom burger. A little emergency during lunch as I had to move the stuff from Gina's car to the PSeed waiting area but I come back in time. But at that time it's 3:40 and time to mobilize. We get on a green shuttle and head off to SJC. The SJ twins left about the same time, but they're driving. We get to the airport and erk, the check in line is long! I should have checked in outside with the other Seeds. But it's okay. I still have time since they didn't start boarding until 10 minutes before the flight was supposed to take off, and that was first class and people requiring special assistance and small children. Hey I should wear my Li and get on sooner. heh. NO. I head over to CPK where Matt and Irvy are eating duh, pizza. I wear Hichan's J.R. hat. ^_^ Oops. Probably time to board now, and I was right. They were calling my number now. Later SJC! Back home I go! Daicon 2001 Location: Aladdin, Las Vegas, Nevada Saturday: Wake up bright and early! 7 PM and got on the road. Ran some errands and intercepted the SJ twins. We actually got in gear to go to Las Vegas at about 7:50. Had a little stop at Barstow and at Stateline for some shopping. Didn't stay long except to buy some outlet clothes. From then on we arrived at the Monte Carlo where the twins would be staying and had a traditional Las Vegas buffet. I think we finally got to go to Chars at about 3 PM. Slightly off from the 12 PM arrival time. No sweat! Went over to Chars where we looked at all of Char's post Japan goodies and went to their local costume store and Serges. I didn't find what I wanted at Serges. Dropped by Mary K's (their tiny smoke laden arcade). After that, we were all hungry and retreated back to Char's for pizza. However Lisa and Natalie wanted to pick up the Dreamcast so we went to their place while Char took the twins back to wrap the present for Dai, a Rei action figure. Well after picking up the Dreamcast, we stopped by the local game store and got Rival School Project Justice in Japanese. Char waited for us to come back to order the pizzas, two cheese, pepperoni & pineapple and mushroom. Oh Char's going to kill me with all that Magical Babies talk. X_X. Anyways, we looked at all the Katsucon pictures and played some Rival Schools 3. I had to take the twins back to the Monte Carlo at about 11:30 and I returned to Char's place to camp out for the night. Darn the Las Vegas traffic! Sunday: I think I woke up about noon. hee hee. The twins came over with Dai at about 2 PM and we got changed into the Capcom vs. SNK cosplay and headed for the Aladdin at 4 PM. I brought my Jin and I think I was scaring all the little kids with the spikes. So many spikes they started calling me Spike-chan. I took plenty of requisite "to-be-CG'ed-but-prolly-will-never-do-it" pictures. Chrissy got her Pirate fix for the day, and Dai got more than she bargained for Genie fix. Hee hee. She dreams of Genie! Char tried to get us to bellydance but we all evaded it while she was bellydancing as Vice. Then she got hit on by some guy from Texas. Hilarious! Afterwards we headed off to Star Trek Experience at the Hilton to eat dinner at Quarks. This was about 9 PM. We didn't finish until about 11 PM. x_X. But first, I must take on Dai at Marvel Vs. Capcom 2! We waited for a game to finish, but I got impatient and beat them off to clear a spot for Dai to challenge. Dai's Ken, Ryu, and Chun Li vs. my Jin, Bulleta and Iron Man. I get her the first time. She continues with Psylocke instead of Chun Li. She was working my team and eliminated Bulleta and Iron Man. So I was left with Desperation Mode Jin (there's a reason why I keep him for last) vs. all three of her characters. But with Deus Xex Machina, I pull off the most unbelievable comeback ever and beat her! Oh.... not a good present for Dai. Oh well. Boosts my ego. ^_^. I need the adrenaline to drive back anyway. We all head back to Char's to change out and I'm on the road back home at midnight. Thank god for the Mohave Desert Radio station. I also passed through this nice patch of zero visibility fog. Lovely. But I make it home at 3:45 AM and all in once piece! Woo!. Zzzzzzzz. 2000 Comic World 2 Location: Automotive Museum, Los Angeles, California Saturday: Nothing like waking up and watching Gary's Eevee kick some Pikachu tail. Pack Gary, because I need more pictures of him, and Kensou for Mako and Karrie upon request. Karrie and I will be competing in the Athena/Kensou this time around. Prior to that, I go to Tiff's to pick her up. I arrive at 9:20 to find Tiffy ironing and ironing. And then Tiff needs to do her hair for Sakura. So it turns out to be 11:05 when we step out of Tiffy's apartment. I nearly forgot to change into Gary, but in 5 minutes, woo I'm done. Tiff is smart and packs a change of clothes underneath the Sakura gear. We arrive at about 11:30, and the original parking area was locked. So we still parked. ^_^. We arrive and the only other cosplayers are Gina and Chrissy and Pu-chan from SJ running a booth. So Tiff and I are the first to sign up on the cosplay competition. #1, and #2. We go look around and Tiff really likes the atmosphere. She loves the fanart and little stuff she can get. She has her eyes on two buttons, an eraser and some stationary. Finally near 1 PM, TenKen and Kamui arrive. Kamui's conspicuously hidden in some dingy sweats, whereas TenKens in her Mimi outfit. We go to take some pictures, including the ACP one, then retreat inside to watch their previous Comicket videos. Mike Vocal also joins in and ends up attracting more attention with his home videos. Tiff is hungry so we're off to that strange chicken place. I dress down quickly before departing whereas everyone else (Gina, Chrissy, Tiff, Mike, TenKen, Karrie) are pretty much in full costume still. And boy did we get the stares, walking by the La Brea Tar Pits. We hada quaint little chicken lunch, but by the time we were done it was almost 2:40. So we need to head back for the 3 PM deadline for the masquerade. But then we figured out, we're the entire competition almost, so they can wait. No more time for extra Gary shots to fill my camera so it's into Kensou. We get there on time, but still end up waiting until 3:20 PM. 6 people, 5 entries. Kamui and I are the only joint entry. Just a walk-on. In the end, we get 3rd place and a bag of random stuff. I take the Gengar stress squishy and Kamui takes the Jigglypuff one. After all is said and done, the SeeD's finally show up. I change back into Gary to finish my roll of film. (and finally did so). Next stop, gather everyone, after a crazy photo session to drive down to Mitsuwa. We lose Lisa, Love Meeko and Mike on the way there, but they meet us there luckily, at the same time. Jon and CiCi meet us there as well. Everyone unloads their wallets at the bookstore. Tiff also buys some rice and snacks for karaoke later tonight. We walk over to the curry house to eat, and at the turn of 8 PM, we are out of there. Tiff, Hikki, Irvy and Bryan make the mad dash back to Mitsuwa for shaved ice, but fail. We get a large karaoke room, but kicked out after an hour. Karrie and TenKen's curfew is met and they leave. We loaf around for an hour drawing random stuff on the board, and letting Hikki massage people. Then we get a smaller room back and karaoke forever! People slowly leave the group, and midnight rolls around, and we thought we only had 1 hour in this room. We go check and aaaaaaa! We still have 1/2 hour left. Well it's really late now, so Tiff and I leave at midnight to return home. AniMagic 2000 Location: Best Western Hotel, Lancaster, California Thursday: I am so -sick- of watching the "Battling Eevee Brothers" episode of Pokemon over and over and over. But Eevee's always sitting down in the hackneyed pictures on cards and stuff so I have to watch Eevee rage tackle to see what it's hind legs look like. My 2nd Pokemon was completed today and just a wince more difficult than Togepi. Friday: I wasn't even planning on showing up yet, so that gave me time to work on some Gym Leader Badges. I went through some extra Orange Island adventures to get the designs and names of the Orange Island League badges since those would probably be better recognized. Oh I guess I'd better pack everything too. Kensou, Gary, Chris x 3, and Terry packed just for Karrie. Cos Terry's cute or something -_-. Saturday Morning: Man, I wanted to watch the return of Gary to the TV show, but I had to get on the road. Watched some of the Prima episode while I was eating breakfast and then I was on my way for two glorious hours of driving thru desert and mountains to get to Lancaster. I arrive on time at about 10 AM. Everybody I figured was still asleep so I was walking around the grounds in the Terry costume (since it looks normal) Actually I passed the Best Western hotel on the first time but then discovered that it -was- the right place. Went first to the pool area and ^_^;;;, saw the little stage construct. I get my pre-registration, #133 and explore the place. Luckily I ran into Gina, Albert and some others who came down to the dealers room. I got some of my costumes up and Gina took us back to the room #390 and #388. Rooms that were next to each other but no central door between the two. I'll be staying in #390 with Tiff and Mack. Tiff forgot her ACP badge! Gah! Anyways, Allie Henry Nick and Gina were in #388. So, not wanting to stay in Terry all morning, I changed into Kensou. Stupid shoe covers were always misbehaving. Henry got into Serge and Allie as Quistis and we all headed back down to the garage sale, errr, dealers room. There I found the rest of my team for this con, the iPlay girls in Shinra costumes. Exchanged room #'s their's being 287 and a meeting time. "Pick us up at 3:45 PM as Gary". hee hee. Thank god they got the sixth cheerleader. It would look hokey if we only had 5. They came through on their side of the bargain, so I have to use Gary. Karrie tried to assault me with her Reno baton but pppbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt! Nice try. She's just lucky I didn't bring Strider to this con. Henry and Allie wanted to check out the stage (or lack thereof) and we didn't have to go within the confines to examine it closer. Went back to get their DDR tape so they could rehearse King of Dancing (DKOFII), which I probably would have been in if it weren't for my summon. Kensou gets pretty hot with his triple layers so I split off and walked in on Char's wig panel and chatted with Lisa and Brian for a bit. OOOOOps. I left food in the car. Better go get it before it dies in the super hot heat. Good thing I brought my own lunch cos, my roommates didn't eat anything until about dinner time. And I was starving. Strawberry Pocky and Fruit punch doesn't quite cut it. :D So I changed out of Kensou into the AGSMA 2000 shirt and went back down with the others for their Final Fantasy gathering. Took some pictures there, but then grabbed Allie back up to change into Athena. With Gina as Bao, and Allie's Athena, I had to get back into Kensou for the Psycho Soldier team. Course this is about 3 PM and in about half an hour I have to change into Gary and contact the cheerleaders. I took a flurry of Kensou pictures with the help of Nat's KOF moves book, including his "I'm an idiot and chokes on a pork bun intro". And an Athena rejecting Kensou picture, which I'm sure Allie enjoyed. And when all that was done, whoosh, back to the room to change into Gary. Rehearsals are at 4 PM. Saturday: I scared Tiff after putting on Gary's hair back in the room because she didn't know exactly what that was for. Eevee was sitting around the room all day and finally now has a chance to go out. I visit the iPlay room and the floor is covered with sparkles. Half the girls have the hair spray and glitter and half don't but we need to go to rehearsals now. There were 14 entries with the first 8 being walk ons. A joint production between AGSMA and iPlay was #11. SeeDs were 10. King of Dancing was #13 (which was the same as DKOF at Fanime, #13). Mack was flippin' out. While we were at the stage, we looked over at poor little Eevee (Iibui) who was waiting by the tree and his eyes were glowing. I didn't make Eevee evil! We totally blew the rehearsal, cos I forgot some of my lines, cues were missed and we didn't do the complete skit on purpose, but at least we got the cues and the microphones set. The iPlay cheerleaders took this time to stretch and practice their moves. The stage is kinda cramped since it's about the size of two twin size beds end to end, but we'll just have to manage. After rehearsals were all said and done, we got some pictures while the sun was still out. But not that many. Back to the room to get dinner! Rooms 388 and 390 couldn't decide where to go so we all just went to the Rose Grill on the grounds. I got a barbecue chicken pizza in my dressed down Gary gear. WOA, Albert & Sunshine and the iPlay girls showed up later. Henry wanted to see what my cheerleaders would do if he ordered their table a single scoop of ice cream. They should have come beat him up. ^_^, but they didn't. After some digesting and re-suiting up in costume, Allie and Tiff wanted to go get craftsmanship judging to I kept them company down there. Also talked to the Baby Neko twins in their cutey Minmei outfits. At about 7:50, we leave the judging area to head towards the pool where I am re-united with 6/6 glittery cheerleaders. Saturday Evening: Karrie: "Now Wayne, just be yourself and you'll be perfect for Gary. Actually no, use a little less ego than your normal self." *growls* Like usual I got some pre-masquerade jitters when entries 1-4 went on, but those eventually went away. After the SeeD's interesting Exorcist skit were were up. I got all my lines down, but on the third cheer, the girls started to crack up so there was no third cheer. (Refer to the script to see which cheer they missed) They just went on with Yay Gary to cute the music. After that it all flowed nicely again. Although the soundtrack wasn't dubbed over, they pretty much yelled the Hey Gary lines over the Hey Mickey ones. My cheerleaders loved being obnoxious and loud all throughout the rest of the masquerade. In the end, we took a judges award home so that was a nice return. And we took separate shots of Gary with each of the cheerleaders. During that time I had Henry organize the ACP picture and take it. Hrm. Henry might be getting an ego now too, cos he put himself in the ACP picture with the other 20 or so girls. ^_^;;;. Gary and his Cheerleaders head back to the room since the dance was coming up and we were going to change into different outfits. I thought their room was glittered up before but now it was just a gob of glitter everywhere. Karrie changes into Athena 2000, so I need to get back into Kensou. While I'm back in the 388, I convince Allie not to cosplay for the dance, but wear regular clothes. Henry puts on Serge. The dance was sort of happening so Allie, Henry, Karrie, Carol and the rest of them stayed at the dance for a bit. I finally fulfilled my promise to Allie from like 5 cons ago to dance with her. I still have to get Karrie though *narrows eyes* After which Karrie and I took a break back to the room to set up DDR and Guitar Freaks. We intercept Jon and CiCi and head over to 7-11 for a bit so that Athena could get a slurpee. That all said and done, back to the dance for a little bit, then up to 287 for a little bit. Then Tenken sends us back out to tell everyone that DDR is ready. No one's at the dance floor so we were wondering where Henry went. I know where he went as I glanced towards the poor area where I see a stupid grin on someone with glasses. "Karrie, over there". Henry's plan went thru and he dunked Allie in the pool. Of course he sacrified his Serge costume a little bit and MY Terry belt. Karrie and her big mouth challenged Henry to throw her in and before she knew it, Athena was dunked in the jacuzzi. Soaking wet we need to retreat back to the room so she can change out. Sorry no hug now Karrie! *brush off* Tenken wanted to change out of Kid when she found out that Athena got dunked so I took some pictures of her and whoosh. Karrie put on nappy pj's and sweats and there's a nice chlorine smell to her Athena outfit. I got into the Terry costume since Karrie things it's "so cute" for a little bit. Everyone assembled back at 287 for some DDR, and then Albert brought in the tape of the masquerade ^_^;. I never like watching myself on tape. It was a very short masquerade though. Afterwards, Mack and Tiff were going to retire and everybody started leaving. I do return back with Henry since SNK vs. Capcom was set up. I didn't hardly know what I was doing so I picked Zangief, Morrigan and I accidently put Honda at double strength instead of picking up a fourth character. I was getting tooled until Honda was up, and I cleared the round with Honda beating the last three characters to save the game. So I put Honda as the last character for each of my matches and I managed to survive Irvine, Wuken, Henry and even Albert's Kim fury. Well actually I totally lucked out since I put Ryo up against Al's Rugal. I'm sure the missing KOF moves has something to do with it too. After that it was like 2 AM so off to bed. Sunday: Wake up at about 9 AM. Sneak over to Allie's room and snap a picture of her sleeping per Henry request. Henry returns a damp Terry belt and reports that his Serge costume is drying on Gina's truck. Henry needs a ride to the airport and Allie needs a ride home. I take Henry and leave Allie for Tiff to take care of. Especially since Allie wanted to stay longer and Henry needed to go at 11 AM. Change into Imperial Chris for about 10 minutes to show people who haven't seen it and then over heat and change back out. Move all the stuff back to the car and dine on cold barbecue chicken pizza for breakfast. Allie had some of that too. Hichan came over cos she woke up and didn't want to wake the rest of her group up. Went down to the dealers room to say bai bai to the iPlay girls in their Shinra get up again, and picked up the certificate for the award from the night before. Karrie has a scanner so she'll scan it in. Drove Henry to LAX and that was it. Repaired Eevee and put everything in it's own little place. Comic World 1 Location: Automotive Museum, Los Angeles, California Saturday: Traffic! Augh! I make it to my old stomping grounds, but I've never been inside this auto museum before. I made it there at about 12:50 PM got my "badge" sticker for 8-19 ($10 later) and got my cosplay contest spot (#8) right before she was going to close the registration. There were about 8 dealers there, but I'm not really into doujinshi so I didn't buy anything. I saw Gina there to my big surprise. What a nut. We talked for a bit and I went down to get changed into Strider. I brought Laguna too, but Strider is not as hot, and it was about 85 degrees outside on the 4th floor of that building. Oh ya! No parking fees. Woo woo! It took be about 5 minutes to clear the dealers room. I also managed to annoy Karrie some with her "boyish" short short shorts costume with extra holes in the bottom. And reminded her not to glomp me since even if I'm not carrying Cypher around, I still got the grappling hook. The pre contest information session was supposed to be at 2:30, it ended up being 2:45. 9 contestants, and 10 people, since Carol and Karrie were in one group. They put us in this nice business room sort of place so we were all taking pictures on the tables, and I got my Sliding Roundhouse Attack picture without worry about damaging the costume. This is the first time I did a walk on, so it was just a slash and a pose. We came back to the business room and took more pictures on the tables. It was nice and air conditioned too. In the end, the brought back all 10 contestants back to the side where all the press and dealers were to announce the prizes. Strider got 3rd place. Which is not bad considering it took about 4 days to put together and this was the third time I was wearing it. And so now it goes into my category of costumes that have competed. I got 2 Digiko cards, 4 Houshin cards, One piece board and sticker book, and this SD Gundam enemy thing. I'm told it's an amphibious thing or something or other. Not a bad haul at all! Random anime stuff is good! The con (if you can call it that) was over by 4 PM so out of there and on the way home! San Diego Comic Convention Location: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California Thursday: I believe I had too many expectations for this con, and most of them fell short of their goals. SDCC preparations came plenty before AX ones were finalized, so I was ready to come down, relaxed and have a good time. What I got though was hours of slaving away, trying to finish the masquerade costume, minimal sleep in suboptimal conditions, with multiple auditory distractions, mosquito/spider bites which are both itchy and painful, and an essentially unfinished costume to compete with, which was only presentable halfway into the masquerade. At the convention, walked around as Laguna Loire with about 3 people recognizing me. "What's Final Fantasy VIII?" -_- I don't work with spandex, so I let my San Diego team handle most of it with trips down there for fitting and such. I come down to find that there was not much change in the status of my costume since last week when I dropped by, and alot of time was invested into the non competing walk about costumes. Fine, whatever. I'm not going to sit around and bail out something that was known for weeks, and second, I have zilch experience in stretch fabrics, and third, the San Diego team had their own plans on what to do next on that costume, and I wasn't going to interfere with that. Instead I'm going to finish my Strider costume so that I have something complete to compete with should these costumes not get done. Which in my mind, was a distinct possibility. So I managed to finish everything on my Strider costume that remained (securing the hook and straps), and the bandages. Oh but the belt was painted on Friday morning so not exactly then. Off to sleep where dogs barking and mosquito/spiders kept me essentially up all night. Friday: Half asleep, another day of con attendance that started off past noon. Actually make progress in the costumes in the morning but 8/9 costumes remain unfinished, including all the walk around ones. The only one that was finished was Dana's. Was walking around as Terry and I knew no one could recognize me, it was kinda nice, since I was full of rage still and wanted to keep low key. Goku got alot of attention and I'm sure they would have lost me if it weren't for the reflector pads on my jacket. Met up with Lisa and Brian and Gina. Good thing I kept our masquerade plans a secret cos I didn't know if they were even going to go through. Alot of progress was made on the other costumes, but not mine. Also, didn't win the drawing for the Rumiko Takahashi signing. The only good thing that happened today was that I bought a SD Soujiro pin. Back to substandard sleeping conditions and pretending to be asleep so I wouldn't be bothered. Saturday: Spent the morning slaving away at the masquerade costume while Ucchan and Ranmachan went to get their Ranma 1/2 #1 signed cos they actually won the drawing. Also recorded the crappy soundtrack because the recorder device would not lose the echo. And rushed those two to turn in the tape and return. Miffed at the prospect of needing to return at 4 PM, and the possibility that no Strider debut at SDCC sunk in. Rage level building. I go retrieve the two from the signing and we re-record the soundtrack, with lousy echo still in place, but better background music. Alot of progress has been made on my costume now, and we're at about 7/9 complete costumes. This is a hours before the masquerade mind you. Benma and I leave at 4 and I lose track of where my cameras are. Upon calling back and the two we left behind not being able to find the cameras, I pronounce them stolen and sulk/worry/apathy/isolate myself for the rest of the day. A little glimmer in the day was walking around as Strider which I amazingly got to do, and many people did think I was going to compete in it, including me since I was the only one at the masquerade check in for a long time. I caught up with Henry that got the only existing picture of Strider that I have. Also saw Rumiko Takahashi, but hey, nooooooo cameras. -_- But the rest of the team showed up with my unfinished costume. 8/9 costumes done and mine is the one that isn't. Screw the wings. Sewing machine broke down. No insignia, the mask isnt finished, no zipper in the back. What the hell! Added to losing the cameras, and missing all but one of the drawings for Takahashi signings for that day (and losing the one that I did make it to). A little note on that drawing. They said you only have to enter once, and they keep the tickets all the way through both days. That's a bunch of hooey if you look at the numbers. They throw out the tickets after each drawing. Look at the numbers for each drawing and they are all within 1000 of each other. If they kept all the tickets, you would come to expect a wide range of numbers. Knowing that I resubmitted, but still lost. 7:30 comes around and that's the last time we're supposed to take polaroids. I think we took them at 7:45 after sloppily applying the insignia on and speed stitching everything else. Send out half the team to retrieve forgotten goods back at the work room. Force down some dinner. The two come back, and yet, stuff is forgotten in the car, so they have to go back. The blacklights which were supposed to be manned by SDCC staff, sucked. The skit got boo'ed. I don't blame em either. My heart was not into it, cos mainly I was dwelling on the cameras. How can I be so careless? Hrm, sleep deprived, so starved I have no appetite, rushed, stressed...hrm! Upon taking Strider's blade back to the car, found it to have several more dents in it cos someone handled it while I was changing. -_- Just what I need. I changed out before anyone could take additional pictures, dashed to the work room not being able to find the cameras, and departed for home a day early. Sunday wasn't going to do anything different for me so better to be at home with a good shower, real food and a nice fluffy bed. Anime Expo Location: Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim, California Please click here to refer to the Chronicles from AX 2000 And read the purple text for my recollections. Fanime Con Location: Santa Clara Westin Hotel and Santa Clara Convention Center, San Jose, California Saturday Early Morning. Very early morning. We're talking 12:10 in the AM. Heh heh. Finished Laguna's jacket at this time with my finishing touches on those four silver circle things that go two on the front and two on the back. I still have to work on that long haired wig. Cos....hello! I don't have long hair! Saturday Morning: Hop on the plane at 8:20 and arrive at San Jose airport at 9:30. Halfway on the plane, I realize that I forgot to bring my Soujiro costume's dress shirt. Drat. But Laguna and Lei were complete so that's all that mattered. (And thus, Fanime Con will be the con where I cosplay older bishonen characters with long hair and guns. Wee!) Plane flight uneventful. Managed to do some American Cosplay Paradise updating while on the plane. *grumble* Henry better appreciate me bringing the laptop over. Allie was there to pick me up as part of my agreement to go to Fanime Con this year. Baggage was waiting for me downstairs at the claim. It was so fast. Of course something has to hapen cos I was at Concourse A. But, Allie had parked at Concourse C. ^^; Parking problems, eh? Can't we just walk there? No, somehow Allie managed to sweettalk some parking tram to take her to Concourse A. You know, twirl her hair, wink her eyes sorta thing. So we had to find the correct tram back. We were standing at a closed tram stop for a good 10 minutes until someone pointed out to us what idiots we were. ^^;. So we find the correct one and Allie drives me to the gorgeous Westin Hotel in the Magical Cosplay Machine (Landcruiser). Allie had fun parking the MCM, and we walked to the front entrance. I didn't pre-reg so it was $40 down the drain. Registration took me all but 20 minutes. Allie left with my luggage to go to room 445. I joined them up shortly, Tiff, Mack, Gina and Henry. They were pretty much all geared up, and thought that I had many more hours to go on the Laguna costume! But hey! I actually finished it! And the gun! Weeeeeeeee. Take that! Course it would take 3 hours before I was done with the Laguna costume cos it took that long to get Tiffy to trim the hair and style it. Good thing I brought the laptop for Laguna reference pictures for Tiffy to look at. Tiffy is just the best at hair styling! Henry, Allie and Mack were done early leaving me, Tiff and Gina to get ready. So they went off and had tons of pictures taken while me and Gina were shedding tons of black and white hair all over the floor and getting gel and glue in the wigs. I swear, the wig is possessed! It does not behave at all! Of course I had it trimmed to half it's normal size but still! Yes it's a wig. Don't expect to see me with hair that long anytime soon. Saturday Noon: We completed Rinoa, Laguna and Sephiroth at about 12:30 PM. So after the other three we went a searching down at the dealers room. We have to wait about 10 minutes. Behind us were the cosplay twins, Lady Phav and BSL that Gina knew. We were stopped a few times for pictures. We finally got in the dealers room. Halfway down the first aisle I was *glomped* by some random girl. At least it wasn't a pure tackle like Henry got yesterday. And then, this girl, this same girl glomped Gina too. hee hee. We scope out the entire scene and no huge gunblades to be found! Or chain whip. But as we were deciding.... "hungry, must eat" and on the way out, we run into our Squall, Seifer and Quistis. And 1 minute later we were joined by our Selphie and Irvine! The Fanime Final Fantasy Fiasco Team had assembled. And many pictures were to be taken. Plenty of poses I took with my non digital camera. Someone wanted a picture of just Laguna and Irvine *smirk*. Henry and I also took the classic dumbfounded hac eyed picture of Squall and Laguna staring off into space. So classic. Lunch Lunch Lunch! I'm getting hypoglycemic at about this time. My Virgo twin too. So we had to return to the room. To get keys and stuff. We decided on going to Sushi Lovers. Well I'm game. We drive off to the AMC 20 and wait over there. Gina took a separate car. And Irvine and Selphie were coming separately too. Or sothey told us. We were all waiting. While we were waiting, we took staring pictures in front of the brass pineapple. That's where that picture came from. Also took a cute picture of Quistis and Rinoa too, in front of a pineapple. Finally after freezing in the blowing winds, we just went in to order food. I got a chicken/beef teriyaki combo. Mack and Gina ordered combos and the rest ordered sushi. I however, could not finish so now I had leftovers....dinner! Selphie and Irvine never showed up so we all returned to the hotel. Allie dropped us off at the door but it wasn't until we all got to the room door to the bottomless pit, that we remembered that Allie had all the keys. *jingle jingle jingle* Oh Allie's coming round the corner! Her silly Quistis bells make her noisy. It's quite useful! I must remember to make her costumes have bells at all times. I leave dinner inside and eep. We sorta need to get to the 4 PM rehearsal. We all jet over there, but keep on forgetting assorted doo dads. We made the Jolt bottle at this time though. But we forgot the pillow and the cue cards. We send someone back to get them after waiting in line. Behind us was the perfectly twin like Lady Phav and Baby Snow Leopard in their twin officer Jenny from Pokemon costumes. So I can't tell them apart. *sweatdrop* And so we wait. And wait. And wait. I don't wear a watch as Laguna so I am absolutely time deprived. Quistis and Squall were our time keepers. We went to the auditorium and turned in our forms. The FFFFT took up almost an entire row. And the row in front of us we used for the props. Wai! I meet up with Pyxie (Chun Li of AGSMA) who came through with her Vampire Miyu costume! That she sewed herself. With Heat N Bond too! Ah, my pupil is learning well! Muahahahahahaha. We take a couple of pictures together. Also meet up with Emi and adorable little Sara. She still doesn't recognize me. ^^; But she soon remembers. So cute little Sakura. Tons of questions ensued and we waited about an hour for the first 4-5 skits to rehearse. *zzzzzzz* We find out that we are entry #21. So we ran off to Ballroom C to rehearse. Heh, I still haven't listened to the soundtrack. So we go through the motions while we are effecting repairs to the Lionheart gunblade with epoxy and tons of black duct tape. After a run through, me and Gina work out what we need to do for the Laguna part of the skit. I must work in that leg cramp. It is essential for Laguna to have a leg cramp. I'll work it in even though it wasn't in the script. Since Pyxie won't be able to be my Julia Heartilly, I'll just point to a random girl in the audience. After a scout mission we were informed that it was our turn to rehearse on stage. Number 20 was up. We SCOOT. Number 20 was still rehearsing, whew. Good thing Nick (Irvine) was saving our two rows. Finally, #21 was called up to rehearse. This will be the first time I hear the soundtrack. During the rehearsal Mack's solid wood gunblade smacks Gina's solid wood sword with a loud crack. I didn't think much of it and handed Henry the Lionheart without any second thought. Allie goes into dominatrix mode and gets knocked out. As she falls back she slips over Tiffy before going to sleep. *cringe* That's gotta hurt. My turn to go on. Smack Irvine. Go to grab Henry and throw him at Sephiroth and grab my gun. I get my gun and face Sephiroth. As Gina turns around I see the sword is ALOT shorter than it used to be. Uh, no sword swinging for her. Laguna win music comes on....Oops that's my cue! *kill Sephiroth* hehehehehe. And the rest of the skit works out. But alas, a second prop casualty. Many people thought that broke on purpose. But we got good support during the rehearsal. Of course all that changed when we yelled out...."Anyone have duct tape?" Luckily TJ from the Soul Calibur group lent us their duct tape as we retreated back to Ballroom C for repairs and more rehearsal. The sword was still quite wobbly after much duct taping. Then I figured we could splint the sword with plastic knives or something. Saturday Evening. We need to return to the stage at 7 PM to get backstage. I needed to retrieve some pictures from Fanime 99 for some people I met last year so I went to retrieve those. I was also assiged to get anything that could splint the Sephiroth sword. No plastic knifes from the plastic ware I got from Dallas Texas in 1999 from Akon, but plastic forks! So I took a pair of those, Gina's comb and file just in case. Caught up with the people I needed to and handed some pictures to TJ and to the Ryoko from last year. I had to find our group in the back and presented Gina with the godly forks of splint-dom. The first one broke easily. The second one managed to escape breaking by Gina, Henry, Mack and Allie. But muahahhahaha. Laguna snaps the godly fork. It will serve Gina's sword well. So we duct tape the darn thing in. There were two other Rinoas besides our Tiffy at Fanime. I took a picture of all the weapons while we had various members of our team holding our spot in line. Finally it was up to me and Allie to watch our spot in line. The last watch before we go on. We're up! And we send off Irvine to stage right and Selphie to stage left. Cue music and the skit starts. We declined the use of microphones due to the fight scenes so everything was yelled. The first audience reaction was when Squall, Rinoa and Quistis assumed battle stances and "bounce" like they do in the game. *please oh please let the gunblades and swords hold up during these three minutes* Jolt! Double Team! Our absolutely great fanboy Aaron (who was Five Star Story Mirage Knight entry #18) brought in the pillow for all the sleep attacks. Dominatrix mode. Sleep. Squall dreams he's a moron. That's my cue! -_-. Head over to Irvine, get a good look at the sign and punch him. He switches the sign to "Dreams he's a Galbadian Warrior! Sorry!" Sephiroth misses. Go over to Quistis (who didn't fall over Rinoa this time) and nudge her. But then something else catches my attention. Gina misses again. Point at some random cute girl in the audience and pretend she's looking at me. And then, in pure Laguna style. *cramp right leg* Duck and Gina misses again. See Selphie's warning and flail over to Squall to use him as a distraction. Grab the gun and again, unload a clip into Sephiroth, winning the game! Stand off to the side of the stage in a smug win pose. Seifer grabs the sword and Squall wake up. Rinoa wakes up. Slow motion. Seifer and Rinoa kiss. Irvine and Selphie kiss. Quistis rustles up Squall. Poor Laguna is left by himself! *sniff sniff* I want my Julia Heartilly! All in all, no props broke on stage. It was a flawless skit. And we got a good response from the audience and the backstage crew and cosplayers. We return to our back room and collapse, take off painful boots and eat. Henry and Mack return to the room to get my dinner and lemon bars, purified water. Allie eats some of my teriyaki chicken as we are waiting for the cosplay to end. There are way too many people out there by the television. I'll just watch it on tape. Saturday Night. The awards are finally announced. SoulCalibur wins something. I can't tell what. Then Sailor Jamboree. Then First place goes to us! Weeeeee! We did it! $75 at Anime Depot. Whatever that is. And then for the walk ons.... Jaymie Pyxie wins for a second year in a row, first place walk on for her Vampire Princess Miyu and Larva. Wai! And later on, even more surprise, Allie won another award for the Fanboys Choice. She got a Eevee fan, a Macross shirt and something else to be given tomorrow. After the awards are all said and done, we gather all the belongings and go out for the photo ops. I see red and green flashes all over. Chocobo Steve and Aaron were there as well. We did all sorts of poses including the classic "staring off into space" pose with Laguna and Squall. Even for a request picture from a kawaii Rinoa with Laguna got alot of pictures. Steve Bennett even got in a picture with us telling us how his brother loved and laughed at the skit. Of course he also wanted to meet the owners of American Cosplay Paradise. Eventually Fanime staff moved us out of the area to go down. So I told everyone I met that I'd see them at the dance. We all retreated to the room and dressed down. I got rid of the wig and gloves and boots but retained the jacket, belt and earrings. Allie retained most of her costume too while everyone else changed to something more comfortable. Jon shows up and takes some pictures and get the Dreamcast set up. Me, Allie and Steve head down to the dance. We get a nasty rumour from Jon that the dance got disbanded. Sunday. Stroke of Midnight: We head down there anyway to find out it's true. So we loiter down in the main hall for about an hour. I catch up with Jaymie again and we take more pictures. Also I get a chance to talk to Aya and Karen. Outside where the dance is, I run into that kawaii little Rinoa that asked for a picture with Laguna and I shamelessly plug my homepage and give her my URL and e-mail. ^^; Bad habits die hard. After being extremely bored for that time, Allie and I head back up for a KOF DC tournament. I can't get used to the DC controller! But my throws are getting there. heh heh. Of course as the night goes on, my skills taper down with my consciousness level. We infect Chocobo Steve with KOF ness who must pick Choi and actually did well with him (only cos he had a pimp hat). At about 3 AM we all patter out and clonk out. I sleep in the little space next to Gina and Allie's bed since I didn't want to get stepped on my Tiff and Mack if they had to wake up at night. Morning wake up 9. Zzzzzzzz. Sunday. I wake up first at about 8:45 and got us the late check out at 2 PM. I got into the Lei costume in 5 minutes. Instant cosplay, gotta love it. A slight modification from a hair extension I got from KinKi Claudia at SDCC99 attached to the Laguna wig and voila! Lei, in Supercop mode. Allie got into Tiffy's Tifa costume. Henry needed to be Orphen for Albert. Mack went out with Zell hair and Tiffy as generic cat girl. Gina went as Dan again. We went down to the dealers room to find out that Anime Depot was a video store. I needed to buy some FF8 dogtags but none were to be found. *sniff sniff* I'll get em someday. I can't keep on borrowing Allie's dog tags every time. I think we agreed on Saber Marionette J series for the award. I took pictures of the Lei WuLong costume from Tekken for the webpage, as well as a Orphen's under arrest picture. heh. The cosplay coordinators got a hold of Allie and presented her with an official Fanime T-shirt and a gorgeous life size Belldandy poster! *jealous jealous jealous*. Time is approaching for me to go since my flight is 1:30 PM. So we head over to the art show to retrieve Ashley's art. The auction is not done yet so we leave it there. We head up to the room for final packing and I change out. I say my good byes, and Allie takes me to the airport (correct concourse this time) to fly home in the rain. Thank god no driving. And zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz all the way home. 1999 San Diego Comic Convention Location: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California And read the purple text for my recollections. Anime Expo Location: Anaheim Hilton and Convention Center, Anaheim, California And read the purple text for my recollections. Project A-kon Location: East Wing Hyatt at DFW, Dallas, Texas Thursday. It's Thursday already? 12:01 AM and I am working on Aoi's black kimono. With a recipe for a kimono by Allie, and 4 yards of black baroque satin, I was hand sewing feverishly after not being able to get a double needle sewing machine to work. Ah, Heat N Bond hem tape is the godsend of cosplay costume production! Allie told me on Wednesday it could take her 2 hours to complete a kimono with a sewing machine. So for me, that would be about three times as much, sans sewing machine and prior kimono experience. I was up til about 5 AM, and I had 90% completed the kimono. Woke up at 8, and did some work on the blue vest. I had planned to do some major sewing of the blue vest and belt on the plane trip since it would be a long flight. I grabbed a bunch of supplies (glue gun, paint, scissors, fishing line, needles), Chris costumes, and packed everything to go to Texas. Thursday Night. Well almost everything. When I arrived in Texas at 8:30 PM, I found out that I had forgotten to bring Aoi's sandals that I had worked so hard on before. Argh! I was so upset. Not as upset when I found out that TWA had so grossly thrashed my swords that I had made for Aoi. Upon arriving in Texas, Allie and Ashley were there with a very cute sketch of Soujiro for me. It was decided once again that if grew my hair out a little bit longer, I would be the perfect Soujiro. After waiting about 20 minutes for the luggage, my super deformed box with my swords came out on the conveyor. Even with careful packing, it seemed like TWA ran over my swords or something because the box looked like hell. Both swords and sheathes were bent about 30 degrees clear in the middle in two spots. Luckily from a distance, the damage to the swords themselves was not so apparent, but the sheathes would need some quick repair. So I left the war-torn carrier box there, and with Allie and Ashley we departed for the room with the damaged swords. After a ever-so-delightful ride on Casey Junior (I-think-I-can tram system at DFW) we arrived at the Hyatt at DFW, Room 2312 on the third floor, where Henry and Tiffany were waiting. On the door, there was a sign, "Cosplayers will work for cookies". I was the last to arrive so now the team was complete. Hungry! Need food. So I dropped off my stuff and we went out searching for sustenance. Our travels took us to the West Tower of the Hyatt where we found the SOS Diner. A 50's styled diner that was 24 hours and had reasonable pricing on food. I had a Mae West chicken sandwich, Ash and Tiffy ordered potato skins, Allie had a humongous chicken salad, and Henry got the cheeseburger, fries and vanilla shake combo. At the time the food was good, and the placemats filled with water and sprinkles amusing. But little did we know the SOS diner would be an oh too familiar place to go. I still got alot of work to do on Aoi. As of arriving at the hotel, the completion stages were, kimono 90%, vest 30%, swords 90% (were at 100%), hair 10%, dragon headband 50%. The Ah My Goddess walk about was scheduled for Saturday so the goddesses were ironing and getting the wigs ready. Not only that, but with some musical arrangement, the goddesses started to dance on the beds like total lunatics. In preparation for Keiichi, Henry took a shower but didn't dry his hair, for the perfect bed head hair tomorrow. The wig for Sumire for Sakura was also done at that time. I, myself, started work on the dragon, since it needed to be painted and would require drying time. I had some pre-made scales from the airline trip so I had those painted. I also went to work on fixing Aoi's sleeves which were 5 inches too long and did not have the rings attached. A little before then I had called to check which room C had arrived in, but according to the hotel, she had not arrived yet. I thought that was odd, so I left a phone message. But then, I got online and checked my E-mail to find out that she was indeed in hotel and located in room 2774. I dropped by but thier CD player was too loud so I had to go back down and call. Contact! We had originally planned to do dinner, but since that was a bust, we decided on lunch the next day. I think the entire Sakura team managed to retire at 2 AM with Ashley going out first, Tiffany, Henry, Allie, then me. Friday. Wake up call at 9 AM! Time for the goddesses to get ready. As for the Keichii and Aoshima, we just stayed in bed, since our costumes (if you can call them that) would take ooooo, about 5 minutes. I managed to squeeze in some more working time on the dragon, and got more scales ready since I only had about 1/3 of the scales done. Skuld couldn't bring the hammer, so sad, but she had her bug. It was about 11:30 AM when everything was all set and we set off for the art room first to display Ash and Tiffy's work. Ashley had her work for sale, but Tiffy's was display only. Then off to the dealers room. I must have stepped on Urd's cape about two times every hour, scoring scorn and bitterness points from her as she'd reel back and choke. ^_^' Blinded by lights. So many pictures of the goddesses. Of course there were people to didn't recognize Keiichi and Aoshima and didn't want us in the picture, or cropped us out (which is what I suspect) but that's alright. As long as some people realized that the real reason the goddesses wanted a Keiichi and Aoshima was to prevent fanboy attacks or harrassment of the goddesses. Muahahahahahahahah. Keiichi also served the important role of money carrier for the goddesses. Interestingly enough, it was Skuld who needed the most defense. Poor Skuld. Sick if you think about it tho'. At the Studio Ironcat table I established contact with COSP ML'er H-chan first, and subsequently also met M-chan, Dan and Tikki. It was so great to finally meet all these great cosplayers in person. After some serious photo-ops, we were interviewed by a familiar group (that me and Henry met at Anime Central) They asked us a variety of questions. Henry and I were all ready to answer "Green!" for their "What is the color of bitter?" question, but they caught on to us. So they asked us "Peanut Butter, Crunchy or Creamy?" The boys answered crunchy. The goddesses all answered creamy. Ergh. These people did an interesting filming technique too, from the feet to the head, all the while claiming not to be crazy fan perverts, but they were paid. So logically that would make them paid fan perverts. Where do we sign up? It was so great to be recognized too. "You all so great, you even got the jerk! (Aoshima)" Oh that made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, aaaaaah. The jerk. So what if my character hits on Belldandy when she is already going out with Keiichi? heh heh. We then heard two announcements, barely, but heard the distinct word "karaoke" in them, so we left in a mad dash to find the karaoke room. This brought us to the con ops eventually. When we entered, the man said "Oh I have what you need!" We were all bewildered to say the least. At he had 6 badges and was about to go laminate them. We were mistaken for guests of honor! He was about to hand us badges of Ippongi Bang and her crew. We found it to be quite amusing, except for no one could tell us where the karaoke was. Finally we went back to the dealers room to find out that the messages only mentioned karaoke in reference to an anime quiz show. Drat! Break for lunch! The goddesses were hungry, so we retreated back up to 2312. I had suggested that we change the room sign to "Three Goddesses, and two boys" At this time, I wanted to change into a Chris, but couldn't decide which form. Allie and Ashley wanted blue and adorable Chris. But when Henry came back after a brief trip stating he saw a girl who looked like she might be a Chris, with a blue shirt and gold medallion.... Riot Chris here I come (to the dismay of Allie). We decided the hospitality suite would be a good place to go. I called up C and said I would get stuff and meet her, Woody and Paul after wards. But of course, we needed to find where the con suite was. Back down to the dealers room. I tracked down the rumoured "blue Chris" but found out that she was in fact Robert, and not Chris. Henry needs his vision checked, or at least some more King of Fighter's experience. Talked to Margaret (Felicia) at her booth who asked "Are you going to confuse everyone again and change into blue Chris later?" But of course, that's the fun part. At the Iron cat table I ran into a nice Japanese lady who immediately recognized me and wanted my picture. Turns out that she was a big King of Fighters fan and her favorite was Iori. But then she started speaking Japanese....*sweatdrop* But I think with the nodding and smiling it went alright. Also got a full custom team picture with Clark (Dan) and Robert (Ibuki). There was something wrong with the camera so I had Henry take these pictures. I thought it might have been a battery problem. Afterwards, the group finally found out where con suite was, and we went up to the tenth floor. We had to wait 10 minutes but they had sandwiches, chips and vegetables all ready for us. I held on to Skuld's gloves so she could eat, since Chris has pockets! I got my plate of food and headed down to 2774 where I chatted with C, Woody and Paul over lunch. She finally got to see the flames and my medallion, and I go to see the Chocolat gloves, Haz Knight Armor and assorted metal spikes. They needed duct tape so Henry and the goddesses brought some down after lunch. Unfortunately, I was experimenting to see if I could fit in one of Chocolat's gloves (I swear I did not put on the rest of the costume) but couldn't get it off before the goddesses showed up. *sweatdrop* I barely got the glove on but it took about 5 minutes to get the darn thing off. The goddesses and Keiichi were going to watch some anime so I went on run to get 3 volt batteries at DFW. While at DFW, I picked up some crucial cardboard, courtesy of Delta, and plastic forks (which got lost) but empty handed when it came to the batteries. I geared up into Blue Chris mode and went down to the dealers room to confuse people again. Got some cute pictures with Tikki and Dan and we chatted for a bit. While I was there, a pair of Japanese workers for Studio Ironcat were sorta talking to me. (the typical nods and sign language) They motioned that they wanted to take a picture, but I didn't understand why they were crouching. So I did a pose as Chris, and lo/behold, they wanted a picture of the Chris hi-tops. *sweatdrop*. Sure! *fix fix the hi tops* Sure! *put feet together for the perfect picture*. I must say, never had people only wanting to take pictures of the shoes before. Tikki had brought along a digital camera which ran on floppies. Luckily for Henry's digital camera, I brought my laptop along so he could dump pictures on the computer without problem. I ran into the Bakeretsu Hunters as well, but no functioning camera! So no Chocolat glomping cute lil' Chris pictures, but I promised Sunday we'd fix that situation up. Friday Evening. I was only in Chris mode for about an hour and went to the room to work on Aoi some more, while the rest of the group watched Rurouni Kenshin. Neka finally arrived to the room and brought along cup o'noodles and tortilla chips! Woo woo! The serpent headband only needed some minor touch up. I ironed out the kinks of Aoi's blue vest and put it together with the 8th natural wonder of the world, Heat N Bond. Then at 9 PM, the Karaoke would start. We had some great plans for the karaoke so I once again, changed into Aoshima and we left for the Futura room. Episode 2, as we affectionately called it was originally planned for Sakura Taisen and Oogami, but due to constraints we switched to the goddesses. It was the second Karaoke, and while Keiichi was singing "Natural Playboy", Aoshima would harrass the other goddesses, until finally he glomps Urd and Urd beats him down. It was fun (but Henry also managed to clear the room). The goddesses practiced Geki! Teikoku Kagekidan in preparation for tomorrow's skit. Also at 9:50 PM, Henry sang a dedicated song for Allie. Oh it was sooooo, ummmmm, we'll I'll let you decide. "I dedicate this song to someone in the audience. I met her as a goddess at Anime Expo, but when she took off her costume, she was still a goddess. *_*" Digicam in hand, I was all ready to take super blushing/embarrassment pictures and I did! Luckily that finished before 10 PM so Henry and I went to see if the COSP ML meeting was going to happen down in the lobby. Tikki, Dan, H&M-chan were all present and accounted for, but I didn't see Ruby so I guess the room party was a bust. Hey, but I got some nice pictures though! Me and Henry retreated back to the room when we decided it was time for dinner. The goddesses got out of their costumes, but Urd shed sequins ALL over the room. I mean all over. Everywhere. Little shiny black hexagons on the bottoms of our feet. Allie and I refused to go back to the SOS diner so soon, so we stayed behind to eat ramen. Neka, Ash, Tiff and Henry all left for SOS. Allie was busy ironing to get ready for Sakura while I was finishing putting the vest together and working on the wig. Ha! They scoff at my use of polyfill for the ponytail. I will make you see! *as I had to beat down Henry a few times with the stuffed ponytail* Hrm! Pillows are a good source of polyfill *looks the other way* *shove shove* Oh, back to the ramen. Friday Night. We had ordered a coffee maker on Friday and decided to put it to good use. Course poor Allie was stressing that "the light won't go on!" "Try a different outlet" "Try cleaning it" (Boy did it ever need it with a layer of dust). After about 30 minutes of this rigamarole, we ordered a new coffeemaker. This time it worked. Lo and behold Henry comes in about 15 minutes later. "I can't stand the wait, nor the incessant arguing about Tomoe" "Henry, what do you think about Tomoe?" So Henry returned to come eat ramen with us. We weren't sure if the ramen was hot enough so Allie and I let him be the guinea pig to eat the first cup. He lives. So I was next, and then Allie. Course the plastic ware I borrowed from DFW earlier was no where to be found, so we had to rely on Tiffy's spoon. Not only that, but the rest of them returned shortly after Henry started eating. So much for 3 minute cup of noodles. I started playing 80's music and the dancing queen Tiffy got up and boogied again. This was about the only time we heard American music all weekend. (everything else, Geki! Sakura Wars) Allie got done with all the ironing, so I enlisted her to work on the teal hem for Aoi's vest while I worked on the wig. And worked we did, for a long long time. We finally worked out that 1/4 inch hem tape was too big so we simply cut it in half to conserve the teal cloth I had gotten. And back to work on the wig. "Wayne, what the hell are you doing?" It involved a lot of running back and forth to the mirror and readjustment. Not to mention the hair strands I made and the crude cardboard ruler I was using made everyone stare. Saturday Early Morning. It's 2 AM and Allie has finished with my vest and off she goes to beddy bye. I am still up working on the wig, and added trim to the sleeves and collar and edge of the kimono. I also fixed my uneven teal belt. I finished my wig at about ten minutes after Neka's morning wake up call at 7 AM. (Imminent system failure, shut down commencing) and clonk! I was out for 3 hours. Rose from the dead at about 10, shower and frosted my hair white. Great now I really look like an ojisan. How distinctive. Allie and I were the last to get fully geared up since we had the most restrictive and HOT costumes. The serpent headband was a genuine pain to get on and keep on, it really binds to your scalp. I periodically had to readjust it to get circulation. Got a great comment though, "I love how you solved the hair problem" (in reference to Aoi). We went down to watch Orphen and 3 episodes of His and Her Circumstances. Then the Sakura troupe was off to the dealers room. Plenty of pictures and a quick interview with Akon staff. And we're back up to the room. Break time. Allie and her Sumire outfit flops face first on the bed and we take tons of pictures whilst she is immobile. I take a detour over to C's room and eep! Kind of bad timing. But we still talked for a bit so I guess everything was okay. Rehearsal upon the return. And more rehearsal. It was decided that Henry was the most mobile, and least conspicuous so we sent him on a run to SOS to get potater skins for me and Allie, a salad for Tiff and himself. We went thru that Sakura OP hundreds of times, but rehearsals paid off. Saturday Night. 6 PM rolls around and it's time for the show. They had told us 6 PM was dress rehearsal but only about 2 skits got to rehearse on stage. They started filing us in order right away. We got number 53 out of 70. C and her Maze group were in the 30s, and Tikki was smack near the end. we got placed in this alley, much reminiscent of AX98, but at least there was water, and we stole chairs from the auditorium. There was a question about using the nerf gun onstage, but we got it cleared. Our turn was up, and it was a few second delay before the music went up. Otherwise the skit went off well. No curtains for me to hide, so I made it appear as if I was infiltrating the opera house. After all was said and done we were shuffled outside, and had some photo ops. We went to a door to go back inside but was stopped by the guards. So we went to the next door and went in without a hitch. The masquerade was over and now was the time for the judging. I got tired of the little games and interludes so I went outside to chat with C and Tikki. Came back in time for the Mari Ijima concert, and Tikki sat down with us at the last song. When the awards were being announced, I could barely hear a thing, but we all knew that Tikki won when Bang was on stage going "Pika Pika Pika, something something Myu!" And I knew our group won best something when i heard 53! Sakura Wars. The feeling was great but they shuffled us off stage right after we got the award. No "absorbing time". And afterwards we took pictures with the trophy and once upstairs on 23rd floor, we took our re-enactment photos. And whew! Showers and changing out of costume! Finally. I am mobile again! Went down to the dance to intercept Tikki and H-chan, but then we moved on since they needed to change into shorts and I had to get Allie and Henry anyway. Called C to meet us at the dance, and finally we were there. But no Tikki or H-chan to be found. Next time, I'm getting room numbers so I can find people. Spent 10 minutes looking around the inside of the dance for C's group, when they were in fact outside. So I figured this would be as good a COSP ML photo anyway when off in the distance at the stairs, I saw a familiar face. After a brief stare contest, it turned out to be Malinda! Found her finally after a day's of casual looking. Rob Lantz was just walking down so I decided now was as good as time as any to get a COSP ML photo, and I could get the Studio Ironcat affliates tomorrow at their table. Afterwards I hung out with C's group and went off to SOS diner for a late dinner (yeh yeh, SOS again). We were done by 2 AM, and I was wondering if I should peer on the dance floor to see if Tikki and H-chan had returned, but I was so tired, and an elevator had just come down, which was way too tempting. So off to crash to bed. Sunday. Awwww. Last day of the con, I'm always so sad. Went as normal Chris to appease Chocolat's glomping needs, and Allie went as Rinoa, Tiff as Tifa. C had graciously let us store out baggage in 2774 for today so we didn't have concierge problems along the way, since check out was at noon. Got another COSP ML group photo with Tikki and M-chan (right before she left), Malinda, and Allie behind Studio Ironcat and then *glomp* Chocolat caught lil Chris. And we got that picture. Finished off my last shot with an adorable picture with Allie and MegaChibi near con ops. Went to the screening room to watch 2 episodes of Card Captor Sakura, and I saw the infamous bat clothes I was supposed to study. About 2:30 PM and *growl growl* Another trip to the SOS diner! (What a surprise) I had the Southwest burger (with a mountain of jalapenos), Ash had chicken soup, and Tiffy/Allie split a cheeseburger. After wards a long hike to the 2774 to get our luggage, couldn't say bye and thanks to C for the space (she was at the Scarborough fair) but we did leave cookies for Woody. And a hike back to the "I think I can tram" There was a super delay and tram shut down for about 20 minutes. Not to mention when it did go, it was super slow. I thought I was going to totally miss my flight! And of course, my tram exit was the last possible one. Allie and Tiffy left at gate C, Ash at B3, and I bolted out at B2 in a mad dash to get on a plane. Checking in two bags! I've had them all the time, packed them myself, no one offered me weird stuff! Give me the boarding pass! Then the metal detector with 5 minutes to go. "Can we take a look at your bag?" (thinking "HELL NO, my plane is right there!) But I still managed to weasel my way on board and that was that. Few. A good time to assemble recollections. Anime Central Location: Ramada Hotel, Rosemont, Illinois Saturday Morning. Arrive in Chicago early in the morning. Eeeeeee! I hate cold weather. I should have brought Trunks if I knew it would be this cold. As predicted got to the Ramada at 9 and registered. With badge ready to go, now it was time to find Henry. 30 minutes later of unsuccessful searching, I decided I would be easier to spot if I changed into Orochi Chris. Still alot of "Who are you supposed to be?" but more people recognized me as Chris at Anime Central than Fanime. Ran into Tom and he got a fantastic picture with the flames sparkling in the flash, so that was extremely cool. Finally at 10 AM, run into my cohort of crime, Genjitsu in Sanosuke gear. Poor guy, he's staff, but he works like a slave. Good thing he's Saturday Afternoon. I swear, my diet turns into a fast food bonanza when conventions come around. Anyways, spent most of the afternoon strolling about the con, shopping etc. Nothing too exciting in the middle. But I did change to normal Chris. And for some reason, Henry got a blow dryer delivered to his door. I wonder why? Saturday Night. Finally caught up with Henry at about 6 PM, because I staked out the video room where his sword was and he had to come back to get it. All the cosplayers began to amass at back room, and there were indeed a ton of them there. After 15 minutes of thinking, "That person in the Gundam Wing costume is probably Heero," got enough courage to blatantly ask. Yep! That was indeed Heero Yuy from the COSP ML with tons of shaving cream to keep her bangs up. Luckily for her, Henry had a blowdryer in his room so that she could re-liven her bangs. Serendipity? Hmmmmm! Extra convenient of Henry to have that blow dryer ready on a moment's notice! "Oh, I can run up and get it for ya! It's not an inconvenience at all!" Chatted with the Ralf about KOF and cute KOF figurines (I need to get the New Face Team!). I also ran into Mink and Pen Pen, who have visited the AGSMA page before, and so attempted a recruitment for the COSP ML. We'll see how that turns out. Also saw Dark Mokona as Chocolat Misu (but didn't know it at the time). Since Henry was staff at ACen (*grumble*) we were almost dead last in skits (5th to last skit). But I wasn't grumbling as much as my lil' buddy who didn't eat dinner! So we miss alot of the skits. We did another dry run in the hallway and finalized our skit (just the 27th revision). I had brought a Togepi just incase we couldn't get a Pikachu, but we got one. And so we decided to use both for added kawaiiness. Chris is about to reach Super Kawaii-yajin Level 3 right now. Whew, no matter what, I'm gonna do this skit and be super cute at all costs. With Togepi and Pikachu in tow, I'm good to go! Lucky for us, Henry's 7.4 ft sword was planted on stage left for us prior to the skit. Unlucky for us, Henry planted Pikachu on stage left as well when it was supposed to be on stage right (Smooth!). We still got by. Borrowed Felicia's purse to hold Togepi (upside down) at the beginning of the skit, looking kawaii as ever. Was very pleased that people recognized it as Togepi. After Henry got his sword, I noticed that he knocked the Pikachu clear off stage (Double Smooth!). So when it was my turn to react and get the Pikachu, I used my Chris speed, darted around Sanosuke, flew off stage and jumped back onstage with Pikachu in hand to set us back in the right direction. Didn't get to use the "It does a battle good" since people were cheering too loud from "Got Pikachu?". Emanating pure cuteness as I was at Super Kawaii-yajin Level 4. I'm sure people were dropping from that radiation. We started to exit stage right, but we were re-directed to stage left after picking up all the props. They shuffled us back and forth across the stage twice for pictures, and we came up with the sword catch photo for Chris. A very sweet pose, with Chris clapping down Sanosuke's sword right before him. After all was said and done (doing the MST3K thing during the Music Videos and Awards Ceremony), we departed to a local restaurant for milkshakes and nutriment. Fanime Con Location: Wyndham Hotel and Santa Clara Convention Center, San Jose, California Saturday. Bright and early, went over to room 231 to change into Chris from King of Fighters. Did a walkabout with Haohmaru (Gina) and Tachibana Ukyo (Mack). Hardly anyone knew where Chris was from but they recognized the costume, I think. Got a nice picture with Ippongi Bang's Lum, and did all sorts of cutesy Chris poses for pictures. I was in the Chris outfit so long, that Gina started to call me Chris! What's worse off, is that I responded to Chris! That's when you know you're in trouble. Anyways, had a run in with Godzilla. After lunch an a quick break, switched to Benimaru. Kind of hard to miss, being another foot taller with bright yellow hair. It is so fun being absolutely narcissistic. I was the subject of a debate where someone thought I was crossdressing. Sha! Benimaru is a guy! Another run in with Godzilla. Caught up with Allie just out of her SAT's and retreated back to the room to change out. Need circulation to the brain. Saturday Night. 5 PM, Departed the Wyndham for the San Jose Convention Center. In my nWo shirt and Trunks sword in tow, encountered a very nice Chun Li cosplayer, who was curious about the sword and I promised to intercept later. Geared up into the Trunks gear and Tenchi into Mr. Satan gear. Mr. Satan had some problems with the moustache, but nothing a little tape couldn't fix. Backstage ran into Chun Li as promised and exchanged homepage addresses and compliments. Plugged the homepage with Ryoko and Sami as well. Evil! Anyway. Also saw the Ryoko and Sami from ComicCon and the COSP ML lurker Shorty. A strange request in the dressing room, they wanted to record all the cosplayers singing the ABC's. Before me, they were singing the regular ABC song, until I got up there, and sang the ABC's to the tune of Aozora No Knife, just for kicks. Afterwards, in true competitive nature, Chun Li sang them to Mary had a Little Lamb, I think. Back to the masquerade... 30 walkthru's and 13 skits. DBZ would be skit #1, and KOF would be skit #13. 30 walkthru's later and a 20 minute intermission, we did the DBZ with a wireless microphone. Learned quickly that you have to speak pretty darn close to the microphone for it to project. Mock punches and the money bribe went well. During the running off stage to change into Super Saiyan, the music was stopped, I guess they thought the skit was done. With no sense of time rushed back on stage as Super Saiyan Trunks to finish the skit in a hurry. Last few seconds of the skit, Trunks was to pursue Mr. Satan, but the Super Saiyan hair broke in half. It must have taken some damage during transport from Anaheim to San Jose. Needless to say, Super Saiyan hair will be retired after Fanime, and any future appearances of Trunks would solely be the lavender hair version, sans purple eyebrows. Changed out of Trunks into flashy red Orochi Chris, complete with the Flames of Destiny. Uh oh! Ran out of film! So a refill would have to wait until after the masquerade. While I was waiting, a Kenshin adored the Orochi Chris outfit and wanted one to wear as casual wear! Last skit of the night, the Dancing King of Fighters skit. The KOF crew decided we would lip synch our words slightly off cue, for that lousy dubbing taste. When we got on stage, I heard a "Where's Benimaru!" Evidently someone remembered from the earlier walkabout. I was flattered that someone knew. I so wanted to say something like "He's out washing his hair." Kyo challenges Orochi Chris, who splits the Flames of Destiny into two, and the Aozora No Knife Music starts. In true Strike fashion, Orochi Chris dons the sunglasses and takes a swig from his silver flask. Now people knew what was going on. From then on, the skit progressed well. After Mari's concert and the awards were announced with the conclusion of the masquerade, I dashed off to the car to get more film. But when I returned, many of the cosplayers had already departed, including Chun Li. But. I got another picture with Ippongi's Lum, this time with Orochi Chris, so the sticking around was worthwhile. I got the picture I wanted, and thanked Bang for the opportunity, and was about to leave, other photographers wanted Lum and Orochi Chris to pose again for their cameras. Twenty odd flashes later, and a little detour, returned to the Wyndham for the dance party in half of the Orochi Chris outfit. Met up with Rinoa Heartilly (Allie), Gina, Mack, and Shorty and whew! Almost forgot about that COSP ML picture. But we got it, downstairs, right outside the dance hall. Muahahahahaha! Now Shorty TJ would need to speak up on the list instead of lurking! (That sure worked well, not!) All in all, a long day, but extremely fun. To the rest of the COSP ML'ers dismay I informed them that I probably wouldn't see them on Sunday. Sunday. I didn't stick around for Sunday, I had a flight out at noon, so it be difficult to meet up with the friends I met last night who no doubt were tired. So E-mail will have to suffice. And sleeping in is good. 1998 San Diego Comic Convention Location: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California And read the purple text for my recollections. Anime Expo Location: Anaheim Hilton and Convention Center, Anaheim, California 1996 San Diego Comic Convention Location: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California 1995 San Diego Comic Convention, 25th Anniversary Location: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California Friday. During the day, I went to the Playstation area and beat someone two rounds straight in Battle Arena Toshinden. I used some guy with a staff. Pretty cool! In retrospect, maybe I should cosplay him, but then again, Battle Arena Toshinden's out of style now. And so I was one of about 70 entrants that got qualified to win a Playstation (at that time $300). At the sign up, first met up with the lady I call, Indiana Jane. Saturday. Yikes! That's the day of the masquerade! We need the tape complete! (Uh, didn't you bring the tape?) No, I thought you guys made the tape. Ahhhhh! Rehearsal and going over the stage was quick. We all are at the Con for about two hours and then make a strategic retreat to handle business. At Chateau D'Ucchan, I had my wig perfected (trimmed and permed), as well get geared up. Same for all the other costumes. I have time enough to make a huge mallet for Akane, and stuffed it with old Yellow Pages. All this going on while we try to find a tape with enough dialogue to go with the script. Can the original script. Go for the intro to the OAV's, Love Panic. Dig up Akane's Sisters and with VCR/Stereo magic, tape Love Panic on to a tape. American translation. New one hour thought up script was rehearsed about twice and into the cars we go! We get there in true AGSMA style (last minute) to hand in the tape. I think we were around number 30. Met up with Indiana Jane again. The skit went off well. Akane and Ranma-kun would be on the front of the stage while Ukyo, Mousse, Ryoga and Kuno were backstage, but visible. Ranma-kun is posing. Akane, sitting down, is supposed to lose her hat in the wind, but she forgot. She stood up, and Ranma presented her with a white flower. How touching! Just like the OAV picture. Our little advertisement girl (was supposed to be Shampoo) came by with a sign "Poster for $10.00". Of course she attracts Ranma's attention and makes Akane flustered. But as Ranma goes back to look at Akane, he notices that Ukyo, Ryoga, Kuno and Mousse all approach, and has no time to worry about Akane. Akane marches back stage to get the mallet. Ukyo, Kuno, Ryoga and Mousse each charge Ranma and attack him, and Ranma-kun manages to evade all the attacks. Thinking that he's all that, he looks to the audience, but not before Akane marching behind him and nailing him with her mallet (We told her "just use a little force") But that must have hurt. The mallet took damage from Ranma-kun's hard cranium. And then Akane improvised and dragged Ranma-kun off stage by herself. That's right herself. What type of vitamins is that girl taking? So the rest of us improvise and start attacking Ranma-kun when he's down and out. End skit. Ended a little fast, before the song ended, but was still a blast. Conclusion. One week after the convention, I get a call from a stranger. This is Sony. We are pleased to announce that you have won a Sony Playstation. You will need to notorize the award and we'll send it to you right away. Awesome! Totally worth the trip. 1994 San Diego Comic Convention Location: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California 1993 San Diego Comic Convention Location: San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California Wayne's Perfect Spin Off Cosplay (PSOC) ©. Anything Goes School of Masquerade Arts (AGSMA) ©. All content, including pictures, on this page (unless otherwise noted) is copyright to PSOC or AGSMA, and cannot be used without prior permission. This page hosted by This Provider. |