Otakon, day 1
I'm at my brother's place in a suburb of Baltimore. He has a net connection. Go me! I skimmed the past day of friends entries but I still don't think I will really read 'em for a while (not even the DDRMageddon one, though I did read at least a half of it...)
Okay. I got up this morning at 8:30 instead of 6, since I was up till like 3 after the packing and stuff. The movers showed up at that point, basically. I showered and put on my Alice costume, and packed quickly and got on the road around 9:30am.![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
buoren called me no fewer than 4 times by the time I actually GOT to Otakon - once around 9 ("I'm still in Pittsburgh"), once around noon ("I, uh, just got to Breezewood,") once around 1:30 ("Oh, the starting ceremonies are happening? I'm on 70 east") and once around 2:30 ("I'm in Baltimore looking for the convention center. I will be there shortly.") My mom also called around Breezewood. She thought I was coming down from Philly.
Anyway, the registration line only took 45 minutes or so. Kevin and Christina came and spent some time with me while I was in it. Kevin's Nadesico costume is quite nice! I hear he had a lot of people take pictures of it. I called Eli, and Rebecca, and random people while waiting in line. Then I got in. The first person I ran into was Christina Simone. She is still living near Baltimore, and she was with her boyfriend whose name I never remember. Then I saw Kevin again. Then we went to the Dealer's room for a little, where we found Mike Strauss, Lee Sheng, and Dan Jacobowitz, and the group of us found our way to the video gaming room, where disappointingly few people noticed my costume. Kevin got in line to play DDR MAX, and I wandered off.
I found Evan, Jayen, Nell, and thenteki and redglasses, and then Django and Kon and then Chris and Jenny and... whee! So good to see so many people! I was really happy to see Teki, and to hang out with him. We all sort of ended up back in the Dealer's room after a while. After a bit, I saw my friend Adam (also a Pittsburgh DDRer), dressed up as Rage! He had an Emi and an Alice with him! So we took pictures of me and the other Alice, and of all of us, and a girl actually asked to take her picture with us, and stuff. A little bit later I saw fizzbang, too! Then after that I saw a guy I thought was Rage 4th mix. So I chased him down and talked to him for a while. Turns out he had a WHOLE GROUP of DDR cosplayers - they had a Nina, Akira, Yuni, Alice, and Rage, and DDR pads as well... so we all got together to take big group shots - and then I saw the Emi and Alice that were with Adam (but not Adam!) So we took these HUGE group shots of all of us! And of all three Alices! And TONS of people kept coming up while we were taking pictures and also taking pictures of us! It was so very exciting! I was so happy about it - my goal for the day was to have SOMEONE I didn't know take a picture of me :) Although afterwards when we ran into theadana and (Mike King, I think) dressed as San and Ashitaka (and DAMN nice costumes) and I took pictures of them, I noticed that the fstop on my camera was WAY off. I have a feeling the girl who took the group shot for me screwed up and they're not going to come out. However, since like twenty people took the pictures of us, I bet they'll end up online at some point. God, that was cool. Even if it wasn't my group or anything, it was damn exciting to be in a big cosplay group photo. *grin grin grin*
After that, I lost all of my CMU friends, although through the use of cellphones I found Teki and James again, and we saw Randy Wood, too. And then lots of people dispersed for dinner and stuff, so I went and moved the car (it was at a meter and I was out of quarters) and then ran into Matt Lahut while I was trying to look up info for where stuff was going on. My brother (Dan) and his girlfriend (Emily) showed up around then, so I showed Matt where registration and stuff was, and then went to meet up with them. We went to dinner at this restaurant in the Inner Harbor, which was good, although I was so very hyper today that I just talked and talked and talked. Dan and Emily are both kinda quiet anyway, so I really did make an effort to shut up and let them talk but they didn't really take me up on a lot of it. I asked a lot of questions... eh. I dunno. Turns out Emily has a lot of family in Seattle, so maybe she and Dan will come out there to visit me and Eli sometime! Yay!
After dinner, we walked back to the convention center. I had gotten a call from Rebecca about Para para - so I wanted to check that out, and see if Mystery Anime Theatre 3000 was full. Well, we walked into the convention center and found bathrooms and a place to sit down near Hall C, and then who do I see but Rob Djayxero, so I harrassed him for a while. Then I ran upstairs to check stuff out. I didn't get to MAT3K because I found the Para Para. They had these 7 people leading the dances, and they were playing anime themes and crap. I saw Rebecca immediately - dressed as Ling Shaoyu or whatever from Tekken 4, and dancing Para, and videotaping. I got there and said hi and stuff, and then they introduced Yoko Ishida, who said "Konbanwa!" and everyone yelled back "Konbanwa!" and then she said something else random (yoroshiku like), and people yelled "hai!" and then she said "Asatte no gogo konsaatu ga arimasu. Minna-san kite kudasai!" and people yelled "IN ENGLISH, PLEASE?" and I yelled at them "she said there's a concert sunday afternoon and you should all come to it!" And then she started singing the Eva theme and doing para to it. I tried to follow for that one song - it was pretty cool, I hope to see the videotapes of it someday! and the girl next to me was like "how do you know what she said?" and I was like "I speak Japanese" and she was like "no way, that's so cool" or something. After that song I headed back downstairs since I figured I was going to get killed for how long my "five minutes checking stuff out" had taken. Dan even called my cell while I was heading down... and I was like "I'm on the stairs down to where you guys are!" but before I could get to them, I was intercepted by none other thanalibash and fleaplus! Wheee! They had just gotten to town! That was so cool to see them! Yay! But I had to go away and all.
So I drove Dan and Emily and me back to Glen Burnie. We went to the Park and Ride to get Danny's car, and I followed him back to his place. We watched some of the Harry Potter DVD extra features (most of it was silly but I thought it was really funny how Hagrid said "shimatta" in the Japanese version rather than "I should not have said that..." and all. Listening to the various voices in other languages was really cool.) Dan and Emily went to bed and left me on the computer and left me a cot. I'm going to set my alarm in my phone for like 9, so I can get back to Otakon at a decent hour and hopefully get my picture taken in my CTB costume, and also get the Megatokyo guys to sign the CTB poster, which I bought today...
Okay. I got up this morning at 8:30 instead of 6, since I was up till like 3 after the packing and stuff. The movers showed up at that point, basically. I showered and put on my Alice costume, and packed quickly and got on the road around 9:30am.
buoren called me no fewer than 4 times by the time I actually GOT to Otakon - once around 9 ("I'm still in Pittsburgh"), once around noon ("I, uh, just got to Breezewood,") once around 1:30 ("Oh, the starting ceremonies are happening? I'm on 70 east") and once around 2:30 ("I'm in Baltimore looking for the convention center. I will be there shortly.") My mom also called around Breezewood. She thought I was coming down from Philly.Anyway, the registration line only took 45 minutes or so. Kevin and Christina came and spent some time with me while I was in it. Kevin's Nadesico costume is quite nice! I hear he had a lot of people take pictures of it. I called Eli, and Rebecca, and random people while waiting in line. Then I got in. The first person I ran into was Christina Simone. She is still living near Baltimore, and she was with her boyfriend whose name I never remember. Then I saw Kevin again. Then we went to the Dealer's room for a little, where we found Mike Strauss, Lee Sheng, and Dan Jacobowitz, and the group of us found our way to the video gaming room, where disappointingly few people noticed my costume. Kevin got in line to play DDR MAX, and I wandered off.
I found Evan, Jayen, Nell, and then
teki and redglasses, and then Django and Kon and then Chris and Jenny and... whee! So good to see so many people! I was really happy to see Teki, and to hang out with him. We all sort of ended up back in the Dealer's room after a while. After a bit, I saw my friend Adam (also a Pittsburgh DDRer), dressed up as Rage! He had an Emi and an Alice with him! So we took pictures of me and the other Alice, and of all of us, and a girl actually asked to take her picture with us, and stuff. A little bit later I saw fizzbang, too! Then after that I saw a guy I thought was Rage 4th mix. So I chased him down and talked to him for a while. Turns out he had a WHOLE GROUP of DDR cosplayers - they had a Nina, Akira, Yuni, Alice, and Rage, and DDR pads as well... so we all got together to take big group shots - and then I saw the Emi and Alice that were with Adam (but not Adam!) So we took these HUGE group shots of all of us! And of all three Alices! And TONS of people kept coming up while we were taking pictures and also taking pictures of us! It was so very exciting! I was so happy about it - my goal for the day was to have SOMEONE I didn't know take a picture of me :) Although afterwards when we ran into theadana and (Mike King, I think) dressed as San and Ashitaka (and DAMN nice costumes) and I took pictures of them, I noticed that the fstop on my camera was WAY off. I have a feeling the girl who took the group shot for me screwed up and they're not going to come out. However, since like twenty people took the pictures of us, I bet they'll end up online at some point. God, that was cool. Even if it wasn't my group or anything, it was damn exciting to be in a big cosplay group photo. *grin grin grin*After that, I lost all of my CMU friends, although through the use of cellphones I found Teki and James again, and we saw Randy Wood, too. And then lots of people dispersed for dinner and stuff, so I went and moved the car (it was at a meter and I was out of quarters) and then ran into Matt Lahut while I was trying to look up info for where stuff was going on. My brother (Dan) and his girlfriend (Emily) showed up around then, so I showed Matt where registration and stuff was, and then went to meet up with them. We went to dinner at this restaurant in the Inner Harbor, which was good, although I was so very hyper today that I just talked and talked and talked. Dan and Emily are both kinda quiet anyway, so I really did make an effort to shut up and let them talk but they didn't really take me up on a lot of it. I asked a lot of questions... eh. I dunno. Turns out Emily has a lot of family in Seattle, so maybe she and Dan will come out there to visit me and Eli sometime! Yay!
After dinner, we walked back to the convention center. I had gotten a call from Rebecca about Para para - so I wanted to check that out, and see if Mystery Anime Theatre 3000 was full. Well, we walked into the convention center and found bathrooms and a place to sit down near Hall C, and then who do I see but Rob Djayxero, so I harrassed him for a while. Then I ran upstairs to check stuff out. I didn't get to MAT3K because I found the Para Para. They had these 7 people leading the dances, and they were playing anime themes and crap. I saw Rebecca immediately - dressed as Ling Shaoyu or whatever from Tekken 4, and dancing Para, and videotaping. I got there and said hi and stuff, and then they introduced Yoko Ishida, who said "Konbanwa!" and everyone yelled back "Konbanwa!" and then she said something else random (yoroshiku like), and people yelled "hai!" and then she said "Asatte no gogo konsaatu ga arimasu. Minna-san kite kudasai!" and people yelled "IN ENGLISH, PLEASE?" and I yelled at them "she said there's a concert sunday afternoon and you should all come to it!" And then she started singing the Eva theme and doing para to it. I tried to follow for that one song - it was pretty cool, I hope to see the videotapes of it someday! and the girl next to me was like "how do you know what she said?" and I was like "I speak Japanese" and she was like "no way, that's so cool" or something. After that song I headed back downstairs since I figured I was going to get killed for how long my "five minutes checking stuff out" had taken. Dan even called my cell while I was heading down... and I was like "I'm on the stairs down to where you guys are!" but before I could get to them, I was intercepted by none other than
alibash and fleaplus! Wheee! They had just gotten to town! That was so cool to see them! Yay! But I had to go away and all.So I drove Dan and Emily and me back to Glen Burnie. We went to the Park and Ride to get Danny's car, and I followed him back to his place. We watched some of the Harry Potter DVD extra features (most of it was silly but I thought it was really funny how Hagrid said "shimatta" in the Japanese version rather than "I should not have said that..." and all. Listening to the various voices in other languages was really cool.) Dan and Emily went to bed and left me on the computer and left me a cot. I'm going to set my alarm in my phone for like 9, so I can get back to Otakon at a decent hour and hopefully get my picture taken in my CTB costume, and also get the Megatokyo guys to sign the CTB poster, which I bought today...