Thursday
...at first we toyd around with whatever game we could get to work (Nac wanted to play Persona: Innocent Sin) but eventually we made our way to Kingdom Hearts. this game is flawlessly perfect. we all had a good laugh hearing Donald Duck and Goofy's voices in Japanese, it was funny! somehow we managed to nearly clear the first 20 minutes of the game by translating the key words and rummaging around the island getting items we had no idea what they did. I got to do a quick blitz through on resident evil also, with Randy walking me through all of the keypoints. this game is SO great. id buy the system just to play this game because its so full of depth and a total revision of the playstation version. Finally the entire Genkigang arrived and we started the real barbecue, or as we called it "Genki-Que". food was good and we had all either flown or driven there so everyone was hungry. we followed it up with pudding toe porn. yes Pudding Toe Porn. its an inside joke from Lindze's board. then we went swimming. well, the guys went swimming but eventually the ladies came out too. followed it all up with some sexy swimsuit photos then headed back to the house to get some sleep before the con. there was also some lady passingby with a little puppy that all the girls went nuts over. Oh, and Twinkle's black cat went down the storm drain. aww. the house was totally packed and somehow the computer room wasn't taken so I quickly grabbed that. others followed and we stayed up looking through ALL of Twinkle & Jeff's anime art books (I love the FLCL ones!!).

Friday morning was sluggish. we didn't get up until around 8am and we only had an hour to pack up and get to the hotel to claim the room. Christy still needed to be picked up from the airport and nobody told her we were getting there late so we had to hurry. luckily the rented van held a good 3/4 of all of us and our stuff and Murodo was cool with taking the leftovers. his car became a lowrider because of all of our suitcases and such, heh. When we got to the hotel the con was already bustling with crazy Otaku. we couldn't check in till noon so we left all of our stuff in the lobby until the we could take things up. Emuko and I had both preregistered so we went to the badge line. my GOD i've never seen it soooo crowded! there were apparently 3,000 preregistered people at this con, and the line was roped (taped) off down the hallways and around corners. What was funny is that people who DIDN'T prereg got in the normal line and were out within minutes. I recall seeing Neal enter his non-prereg line the same time I entered mine and 5 minutes later he's walking around with a badge! Emuko held my spot while I went to check out the DDRcade close to where the line was. they had a DDRMax and DDRSolo4th there as well as a few sit-down arcade ports. nothing impressive though. all arcades were only a quarter per play, but in turn, you could unfortunately only play 2 songs on the DDRs. Heading back to line I saw Allison had arrived from her amazingly long journey from Atlanta. Now we had a group! Tirkiman showed up too with the OtakuRadio group. they hadn't preregged so they got in and out in notime as well. They eventually moved the line alot faster by diving the line into alphabetized groups, so things moved along a LOT faster. I got my badge and headed off. Found Layne shortly after that. Layne was here! Yay! it was so cool to see her after a really long time. Her, Emuko, and I went off to scout the con. Headed towards the dealers room and even though there wasn't anything I really wanted, there were a ton of things I hadn't seen at any con before. Mainly Jrock accessories and posters and SanX goodies. I almost bought a FLCL Haruka action figure but it was $35 that I didn't have on me. it had the Rickenbocker and the Vespa with it too! I soooo wish I had got it! We mill'd some more and saw Shawn The Touched working on his latest project. He couldn't quite tell us what it was yet, only that it would premiere in the Hentai room later that weekend. his computer mouse was awesome; it was one of those new ones that sit on your finger. rockin! I had noticed that the layout of the hotel had changed too. there was nothing where the dealers room was before and it had moved to the other side of the main stairs. we then headed towards what was the art room the year before to find... ANOTHER dealers room! yes, there were TWO of them at this con. this one was more company-based with ADV, Ironcat, and other big name distributors and comic companies. I saw Elin Wrinkler of RadioComix there and remembered an artist who helped do the art from Suikoden would be there. I had brought along a piece of Suikoden art but unfortunately it wasn't his so he didn't feel comfortable signing it. he DID however, draw me an amazing sketch out of total kindness. Pencil and inked it right there! it was so so so cool! Ironcat had the regular crew there too with Robert DeJesus drawing anime versions of themselves on their con badges. Kei was here too and it was good to see her again. she dyed her bangs turquoise so she really looked like an anime character now. Layne and I somehow got separated walking around but I did find Dogbert in the DDRcade. shortly after that Kate, bobette, and Nato showed up. we all agreed to go eat somewhere. the hotel restaurant was totally deserted so we went there. Being Texas, they didn't have "Sweet" Tea, just regular which Bobette and I really didn't like. what made it worse was that the restaurant wouldn't serve us cheesesticks until 5pm. and by this time it was only around 3! so we....waited. im sure the waiter got a little upset seeing as we didn't want anything else and would sit there drinking tea until 5pm... but that was no reason for him to ignore us. we got bored eventually and gave up on waiting. I had now finally got some time to actually head up to the room we were staying in. for some reason the hotel didn't put us in adjoining rooms, but luckily they were all on the same hallway and were only on the second floor (even though the floors were labeled 22-33).
To kill some more time Dogbert and I stuck around and played some more DDRSolo but it turned out that Lindze and Yayas "Cosplay 101" panel was going to start soon. This girl named Keyla was also interested in going so we all left to see it. The panel was in a fairly decent sized room and had a good audience of about 25-30 people there (not including random passing fanboys who took pics then left). The panel didn't have any real plan of discussion, but it worked out well because they took questions from everyone and that sparked discussion about what fabrics to use, where to get stuff, and praise to the substance known as "Goop". Afterward Nessa, Mel and a handful of others were going to go eat which got a lot of us interested so we went and got a plate of fries together. While eating a LOT of others showed up and chatted with us too. we had to put 3 tables together to seat everyone!
Duel Jewel (or "Jewel Dual" as well called it) concert was starting. the room was serving liquor near the back of the dance. They marked "X" if you're of age and "U" if under. Kate got a "V" for some reason. At first everything was sealed up with the room but it turns out that was only for opening ceremonies. The group was pretty good, even though most of us don't speak japanese. The band spoke a few Engrish lines though. There weren't any fanservice naughty acts or anything but the vocalist flipped everyone off at the end of one of his songs. the place got really packed The concert just didn't really seem worthwhile so Cybele and I went looking for the J-Pop room. We couldn't find it so we had to ask someone who would definitely know. Con Staffers all pointed us in weird directions. But luckily we had the help of fansview's Kevin Lillard to show us the way. Turns out the J-Pop "Room" was simply the bar on the first floor and there wasn't much of a dancefloor at all. they only played Jpop for a few hours and it wasn't on now. It seemed like there wasn't much of anything to do this late at night, so Emuko and I went party-hopping. We had access to BigFire which was pretty cool. They had a drink list that had anime names for the drinks. Spiked Spiegal, Moldriver, and everyone's favorite Perfect Blue. unfortunately the Perfect Blue drink went fast since so many people liked it and it was renamed UN-Perfect Blue... then later on "Blue Shit". We eventually found a party going on but it was in the Yaoi room being held by Michi. It was weird because the room had EVERY type otaku you could ever imagine. the hardcore otaku, the young otaku, the anorexic otaku, goth otaku, the spherical-shaped otaku, fangirl, bishonen lover fangirl, etc etc etc. Every walk of life was in the same room intensively watching Yaoi! Cybele was here too talking to some guy about computers. I got to finally meet HerselfTheElf/Amanda after seeing her at so many cons. Chuck showed up as well, but just as he arrived the Yaoi had ended and they were clearing everyone out.
Back in the room everyone was chilling out watching Telemundo. it was funny since even though none of us know Spanish, they were playing a sort of AmericasFunniestHomeVideos with scenes of cats doing hilarious things!
Saturday morning I woke up and put on Meis from Thousand Arms. Erin was already downstairs as Marion. We got a few pictures in costume and it was EXTREMELY busy so I got to see and meet lotsa new people. Tania was feeling much better today and was in her Billy costume from Xenogears. Michi in her Mai costume, Christy as Lulu, several GenkiGang members were walking around too. I mean EVERYOBODY was down here! Out of absolutely nowhere though we saw these three asian girls who had done really really amazing Rhapsody costumes, and not only the main character Cornet, but two of the helper characters too! Tania, Erin, and I all freaked out because we were the only people who even mentioned possible doing Rhapsody cosplay! it was awesome! Allison showed up then too as a really cute Myao. We decided now would be a great time to finish up the Gao costume to wear-able status and try to get as big of a group pic as possible. We headed up to Erin's room and glued on feathers and quickly styled up the wig. Tania changed into her Filia costume while up there too. When we came back, everyone was still there. We even brought down the posterboard of Prince Ferdinand that was originally to be used for the stage cosplay. Hah hah, the Rhapsody girls even named him "Stoned Prince Ferdinand" ^_^. The reaction was huge, with people getting pictures from all directions. Cosplay was starting soon. Tania and Terry were waiting in line and I caught up with them. Wait, make that waiting in the OVERFLOW line. there was 1 line so loong they made a second one on the other end of the hotel lobby. its amazing we got in at all! Terry's friend was with the lighting crew and was supposed to sneak us in to near frontrow seating but the guy never showed up, so we sat near the middle back. Luckily at the last minute I caught Emuko and Nikki and they gave me skips (nyah nyah!). Cosplay was once again very well run and professional. They divided it into two separate categories; Walk-On and Group cosplay. The walk-ons simply walked on, posed, and walked off the stage while anime music played. I don't know why but every time I watch this happen it brings a kind of authentic feeling telling me that THIS is what should happen and this is exactly how things should be at an anime con. it reminds me mainly of something you'd see on E! fashion report with happy music playing, a model on the runway, and everyone clapping and cheering. Groups were mostly really good and Really funny. Especially Anime Celebrity Jeopardy (Sorceresses That End In The Name "Inverse". ummm... Pikachu?!) Some of the music groups were a bit boring but the costumes qualities were really good. The announcer was no Brad DeMoss but he was a funny guy who took the humor from SNL's "Schprokets" (sp?) and overall did a pretty good job. The Star Wars-ish cosplay with Erika Door's group was definitely one of the best ones, especially with the suprise character gender near the end, ha ha. Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid. I wasn't about to sit through the intermission again. The judges usually take a half hour to an hour deciding the winners so I wandered off looking to kill some time. Went to eat with Murodo, Elly, and Cybele. had a Full meal this time and we made a few jokes. Murodos friend brought a Ken Shiro toy and we ended up drowning it in a small bowl of ranch hotwing dip. its was funny!
I came back to the cosplay just in time to see the winners get their awards. some didn't make any sense since a lot of us got annoyed by some of the acts, but a few of the groups we liked got awards. Grand prize was skateboard, snowboard, videos, dvds and some others stuff and it all went to the group we all loved; the Star Wars group! other small awards were given out to hall cosplay and some of the people we knew got awards... like the Persona group!
Battle Royale was being played in one of the video rooms and I was sure to catch that. I wanted to go with a large group of friends and since a lot of us had seen it so many times; we could all MST3K it, but I couldn't find anyone. Lindze, Jenny, and Twinkle were still waiting for a pizza in the lobby at this time, but they'd come watch eventually. Cybele had was out of her costume and was waiting on the official dance to start so since she wasn't busy. Amazingly she's never actually SEEN Battle Royale, but has heard a few things about it, so we went to watch. We caught the movie started just as it shows the little girl with a teddy bear covered in blood. The movie was already getting a ton of laughs. Not only was this an OFFICIAL copy of the movie but the subtitles were very professional (so so so much better than my HK VCD of it) and the movie quality was great. I even caught things I didn't see before, like in the guitar flashback the guy reading Slam Dunk manga. nice! The movie was definitely a hit among lots of otaku because I heard some talking about the movie even after it was over. Kate got lots of attention too since she had made the announcer girl costume. The noise from the room over was going now and we could hear the bass pounding at the walls of Battle Royale, so as soon as it was over we headed back to the dance. they were announcing the winners of some dance contest. this is when Erin and Tania arrived. heehee, Erin really didn't want to dance at all, but Tania and I "forced" her too. even gave her glowsticks and made her do a little dance. it was funny seeing her be like "whyyyy?? why are you making me dance? @_@". Tania looked great too because she had taken parts of her friends costumes (Marion's tie, Myaos Ears & tail) and made a little outfit out of it. They played mainly traditional con songs, Rocky Horror, and Grease. The Hentai room had now began forming a line that stretched all the way out the halls with just about every perverted male otaku at the convention waiting in line to see it. "You KNOW you want to go!". Somehow we found the Console Gaming room hidden behind where the art auction was happening. XBoxes, Gamecubes, Playstation 2s, Wonderswans, and GBAs all along the walls. its good to have sponsors for these things im guessing ^_^. The only dance left to head to now was...well.. Dance Dance Revolution! Cybele, Tania, Terry, and I went to see if any tournaments had started but either we missed it or we were too early because they had taped off the machines and were standing around.
So we plopped down on some lobby couches and talked...all...night. While sitting around Strag0/3-Day (going by the name "LaRoyS") and tirkiman had their group sit around with us talking about things and conventions and stuff. We got to see some crazy acts going on everywhere. Some guy who was screaming about his nipples, Shawn the Touched talking with some girl about the dance, a bunch of 40year olds watching bigscreen speedracer, kids playing Megaman theme songs on the lobby piano, Yaya's Storytime Hour (15 people all gathered around her while she sat in the only seat and talked about who knows what), and other stuff. Kei came by too and talked. She even introduced me to Taliesin Jaffe, which was cool because he's the only other person who has pulled off a Toby costume. I finally got to meet him! Erin and a friend too stopped by really late around 3am. By around 4am we had talked about every Cosplay, Suikoden, Skies Of Arcadia, GundamWingFanfiction, Floooping, and FinalFantasy topic ever possible and were trailing off in our sentences. I think Cybele began speaking French sometime in the night and not knowing it. We all agreed that if we didn't get any sleep now, we wouldn't wake up to leave on Sunday and some of us (ME) had early flights to catch. We all headed off to get what little sleep we could and hope to catch each other to say goodbye the next morning. Big Fire had fizzled out by now and they were just sitting around watching Spiderman VCDs.

Sunday morning crept up and luckily I had already packed all my stuff the night before. Err "packed" meaning all of my stuff was neatly tossed to one corner of the room and fit nicely in my C-Bag. im pretty sure I was going to be the first one to leave for the airport because nobody else seemed to be in that big of a hurry. I only got to say goodbye to a handful of friends. I wanted to make one last swing through the dealers room to pick up any last minute discount stuff but my badge was already packed so this makes the first ever convention I bought absolutely NOTHING in the dealer's room. I really wanted to get the Haruka action figure too. I tried to finish up my film before leaving and got as many group pics as possible. Its always sad to say goodbye to so many great friends ;_;

Totals:
Times heard "So And So Is Looking For You": 15
Total Time Spent Waiting In Registration Line: 45 min
Total Time Spent Waiting In Cosplay Line: 20min
Total Times using the stairwell: 11
Total Times using the elevator: 4
Total DDR Songs Played: 4
Number of meals ate: 3-4 (plate of fries)
Types of new mixes drinks tried: 3
Items bought in dealers room: 0
Total Anime Watched: 0

Best Quote:
"Heres a paper towel" ~Strag0

Con:
+GOOD+ very good cosplay, lots of friends, excellent DDRcade, amazing costumes, staff did a good job keeping things under control, double dealers rooms, mad cool room parties
-BAD- dealers room prices, both dances, room service costs, lack of pool, no cheesesticks until 5pm
~UGLY~ The "A" in A-Kon stands for ASS