------ Thursday ------

Like many other conventions, it actually started the night before, and with very little sleep.  Jason was going to be carpooling down with me, so I had my father take my car in to Jiffy Lube for some kind of service.  It was also nice not having to vacuum my car, because that really sucks.  I also put rain repellant on my windshield, as it was supposed to rain all weekend.  Because it had been raining earlier that night, I had to dry the windshield off with three paper towels before applying the solution with an old rag.  In the dark.  I'm not sure I applied it right.

------ Friday ------

So I'm almost ready at 10:00am, which is the time Jason's supposed to show up.  All that's left to do is put my stuff in the car, eat breakfast, get dressed, shave, and wake up... in reverse order.  Jason showed up late, while I was still eating, catching me completely off guard.

The drive to the convention was shorter than expected.  The map I was looking at made it look like we had to drive through Richmond, and our exit was at the other end.  Fortunately, that map was upside-down, and the exit was actually before we got to Richmond.  We saw a sign that said something about Richmond, and suddenly we were at my hotel.

I didn't stay at the convention hotel.  I stayed at the Day's Inn across the street, two parking lots, a couple buildings, and some kind of mini-park, which I'm guessing was for employees of whatever companies were inside the buildings.  The mini-park had it's very own smelly pond, complete with a fountain and murky, brown water.  I think it was water.  By foot, I'd say it was a 10-minute walk, or a 9-minute run (5 minutes running, 4 minutes catching my breath).  I chose to walk.  It was hot out.  No rain, no clouds containing rain, no gentle, caressing breeze pushing clouds containing rain toward us.  Jason and I were sweating by the time we reached the convention hotel.

Jason had brought four walkie-talkies, of which three had batteries.  They were cheap ones he'd bought from Radio Shack on discount, and seemed to be magnetically attracted to the ground.  They didn't weigh much; they just fell off your pants every time you moved.  He also had headphones for them, so that if we were at an event, we could receive messages without disturbing those around us.  It was actually good for the rest of the time as well, as you otherwise couldn't hear what people were saying at the other end.

I thought that, since this was my first time to this particular convention, I would become invariably lost rather quickly.  However, the registration table was very easy to find for the short moments there was a break in traffic.  Even if it hadn't been right inside the door we chose to enter the hotel with, it would have been easy to find because they chose to put it in a major hotel artery.  It was difficult to get by sometimes, especially if some oblivious people stopped to chat.

Charles: Man, this traffic is killer.  What's keeping everyone?  Come on! Move! Let's get...  Rick! Hey buddy.

Rick: Oh, hi Charles.  How are you?

Charles: Fantastic! Long time no see.  How are the wife and kids?

Rick: I don't have either.

Charles: Good, good.  Glad to hear it.  I tell you, that lawn of mine is coming in real good.  You should stop by and see it.  Wait, I've got pictures.

Amy: Um, excuse me.  I have to get by.

Charles: Jane! Nice to see you again.

Amy: Amy.  I don't know you.

Charles: You've met Rick, right?

Amy & Rick: No.

Dave: Hey, can you guys move along?  You're blocking people.

Charles: Hey! You're just in time to see my lawn pictures.  Oh, look! These are from when I visited Wisconsin.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I imagine it.  Much like the pre-registration line.  There were three people in front of us when we got to the line, and it took 5 minutes.  The couple that was ahead of us apparently couldn't decide which of the three badges they wanted.  I had to restrain myself from recommending whichever one came with a noose.

I got a Chii badge.  It has Chii right on the badge.  I was tempted to write Chii under the picture of Chii, because that's her name, but wrote Brian instead, which is my name, not hers.  Then it occurred to me that some people who haven't met me yet might not know who Brian is, so I wrote Darxim on the back of it in large, friendly letters.  I figured that if the badge was just going to flip around anyway, some good may as well come of it.  Most of the time, though, I kept the picture of Chii visible, because she is cute.

The first thing you do once you're registered and have your Chii badge is you explore the convention, try to find out where things are.  It's what you do.  Well, there was a lot of this to be done.  To quote my friend Bob, "The hotel design is something M.C. Escher would be proud of."  It was not easy to find my way around.  Things I had found earlier eluded me later.  In order to go down a floor, you had to go up stairs.  I'm pretty sure some parts of the hotel were constantly changing to daunt our exploratory efforts, much like the streets of Sigil.  Fortunately, the Video Gaming room and the Anime USA table were not located in the outer reaches of the hotel, as those are the two places I spent more time than anywhere else.

I actually spent more time at the Anime USA table than in bed.  You see, I'm on staff.  Of course, it was actually more of a hang-out spot than a promotional spot.  The MAGFest guys were in the same area, running  DDR  clones and occasionally a few random games.  It was actually a big draw, as there was minimal DDR in the Video Gaming room.  There was also a secret door there that lead to the main events tent/bubble/moonbase/whatever.  There were several other such doors.  The main events room was actually detached from the main building, so you had to go outside to get to it.  There was also a video room right next to us, and a secret room that wasn't open all the time just around the corner and down the hall.

At this convention, I was determined to get as many hugs as possible.  I used to hug cute girls like a fiend back in high school.  I couldn't see why I wouldn't be able to do so now.  Then I realized that I have social anxieties.  For some reason, I think that, if a person doesn't obviously like me right away, they hate me upon meeting me.  I know this isn't true, but it sticks in the back of my mind.  In the past, I've taken a simple sigh as "I hate you, go away."  Strange, I know.  I guess it's my subconscious playing on my fears.  It does that a lot.  It's quite annoying.  Despite all of this, I managed to get a number of hugs from fellow congoers.  All female this time.  I wanted to get a hug from the Utena lesbians, but that time my logical mind kicked in with an "It ain't happening", and my logical mind doesn't kick in with that kind of thing often, so I figured I had better listen to it.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I did hug a girl while she was wet.

...okay, so she was wet from swimming in the pool.  You guys are punks.

After perusing the crowds for a bit, Jason and I hopped into the Video Game room.  They had the new Atari 2600 controller systems there.  They didn't have Combat (boo!), but they did have Adventure (yay!).  Jason mostly played Yar's Revenge.  We also battled it out in Tekken 4, which features Xiaoyu in a very cute, underwear-exposing, pink skirt.  My mantra was "You cannot defeat the kawaii!"  Unfortunately, I hadn't played Tekken in a really long time, and was unable to remember how to play her, thusly getting my ass handed to me, gift-wrapped, many times.  I did manage to stomp the shit out of several people utilizing my angry button-mashing skillz, though.

The Video Game room lacks real draw for me, as I can play video games at home.  I often do.  It's nice to be able to feed the addiction from time to time, though.  However, what I was really here for was the people.  You may or may not know that I hate people in general.  At anime conventions, I'm reminded that not everyone sucks.

We wandered for a bit, getting pictures of cosplayers.  We ran into Christian during this.  He had just arrived.  We went out to his car to help him bring his stuff in.  Unfortunately, he had parked on the opposite side of the building (if such a thing exists).  We had to go by the pool, up stairs, down stairs, up more stairs, through the lower lobby, up more stairs, then down a narrow corridor filled with moving people, all while carrying stuff.  Did I mention it was hot outside?  The humidity from the pool made it even more fun.  There were even people swimming and sunbathing.

Then Christian remembered something else he had to get.  Didn't really matter, we couldn't have carried anything more at the time anyway.  So we went back to get it, leaving someone (possibly me, I don't remember) at the table to guard the stuff and promote Anime USA.  When he got back with whoever was with him, he realized he had left something else.  I think he did this again when he came back, but left whatever it was in the car this time, deeming it unimportant, until later when he realized that he did, indeed, need it, and made yet another trip to his car that was parked on the opposite side of the hotel (if such a thing exists) to retrieve it. 

After that, I hung out (free and flappin in the wind) (or not) at the Anime USA table for a while.  Bob came by at some point, and at another point Christian took off to check into his room.  Bob hung out at the table intermittently.

The Anime USA table was in the Artist's Alley (AA for short, which I was sure meant Anti-Air for a while), which was divided into two rooms.  We were in the second one, along with several artists, and the MAGFest guys.  As I mentioned earlier, the MAGFest guys were running a couple DDR clones, which were quite the draw.  I think that, even though you had to go through the first AA room to get to the one we were in, and even though the first room was bigger, the second room had more people in it at just about any given time.

I'm not exactly sure where in all of this I met Jean.  I remember the morning fog was thick off the still waters of the bay, lingering like a bad hangover.  I had a two-day old bottle of scotch on my desk next to the phone.  She came slinking into my office wearing nothing but a green velvet dress, leather girdle, red cape, and possibly shoes, although I don't recall seeing any shoes.  She fixed me with her deep, longing eyes, and said "I love your hair."  Women often tell me that.  It's as common as rain on the night asphalt, when you're driving home late from work after an affair with the secretary.  And it always means the same thing.  She wants something.  And I knew what it was.

I stared into the deep blue oceans of her eyes, and asked her straight out "Do you want to go to our convention?  It's in November, near DC."  I knew I had her.

She replied with the breath of a dove taken flight, "Thanks, but it's too close to Nekocon, so I won't be able to go."

Damn.

I got a hug from her anyway.

I had been carrying around my digital camcorder all day, without once having powered it on, except when we were bringing stuff in from Christian's car, but that was just to test to make sure it was working, and doesn't count.  Honest truth, I swear.  I came to this convention with the intent of getting interviews with cosplayers, and I was not about to let the day escape me without some.  My social anxieties had been keeping me from my self-given task, but my hand was forced when a man wearing two DDR pads went and did DDR.  I had to capture it on film; or tape as the medium seemed to be.  Once captured, I knew I had to interview him.  So I did.  I only hope I can edit the sound in such a way that I can get rid of the background noise that tried so desperately to overpower his voice.

After that near-disaster of an interview, which actually went quite smoothly, I realized I needed practice.  Jason had become available, so I conducted a kind of mock-interview with him, fully intent on reviewing it immediately afterwards.  Somehow, during the course of the interview, I forgot about this purpose, and never reviewed it until Sunday night, at home.  It mattered not.  I would have botched all the other interviews anyway.  I need to build my professional conversation skills before Otakon.

Somewhere along the line we met up with Tripp.  Tripp Wilkins.  I told him he should become a blues artist, because his name sounds like it would belong to a blues artist.  He told me that I'm crazy.  I rebutted with maniacal laughter.

At some point we headed back to the video game room, and Tripp displayed his hitman-like skills at Duck Hunt.  Yes, Duck Hunt.  The 8-bit NES lightgun game.  Tripp 0wn3d that game.  He was like a trained hitman, trained at hitting ducks... with virtual bullets.  A kid nearby who witnessed this asked him "Are you a hitman?"  Tripp fervently denied it, but we all know the truth.  The room's lack of draw soon led us to depart, but not before Tripp made it to level 21 on said game of Duck Hunt.  I do believe that level of marksmanship puts you close to mafia acceptance.

We headed back to the Anime USA table where Christian was valiantly defending the supply depot (under the table), and, when the vile hordes were distracted, promoting the convention.  Bob was either with him, or soon after approached the table, for Jason, Tripp, Christian, and I wandered off together.  Somehow, we got divided.  I can't remember if I was with Jason or Tripp, but I will assume Jason because he is notorious for taking pictures of cosplayers at any given opportunity.  I decided that I needed more interviews, and conducted a couple of those.  When finished, we finally had a use for the walkie talkies we had been accidentally dropping all day long.  We had to find the other two.

They were in the dealer's room.  Christian had mentioned that we were going to the dealer's room when we left the table, but Jason and I never made it the 15 feet to the dealer's room doors due to the presence of cosplayers.  We entered the dealer's room and scouted around a bit.  We didn't see them.  Jason called Tripp on the walkie talkie, asking for their position.  They were in the back.  We headed for the back.  They weren't there.  I bought an Amerimanga #4 from a cute girl in the back, as it was discounted down to $5 and contained the first episode of Fred Gallagher's Warmth.  We received word over the radio that Tripp and Christian were now in the front of the dealer's room.  We looked over.  Jason saw them.  I'm practically blind when it comes to spotting details, so I trusted him, and we walked over.

They were there.

Christian wanted to find a few more things throughout the hotel, so we set off exploring (this made my second time doing this that day).  After a short while of kind of finding stuff, talk about dinner began.  It seemed everyone was feeling kind of hungry.  I couldn't ignore my own stomach on this matter, but there was one issue.  I had promised a bunch of people that I would be at the Anime USA table at 7:00pm.  It was almost 6:50.  I convinced the bunch to head back to the table.

We left for dinner at 7:05pm after no one showed up at the table.  I personally wasn't expecting people to show up at exactly 7:00, but that is what they would have had to do in order to have met me there.  I certainly couldn't handle the hunger any longer, and the group was giving me the ol' evil eye.  I put the camcorder into my bag and we set off for Tripp's vehicle.  We decided on a Greek-Italian restaurant that Tripp recommended.

I forgot to turn off the camcorder.

The restaurant was located at a strip mall not too far from the hotel.  It wasn't exactly a posh setup, but it was kind of nice.  There was greenery and Christmas lights.  The black ceiling provided a very weird ambience.  It was also packed.  There were two open tables when we got there, so we were able to get seated right away.  There was something going on in the back, though.  We guessed a wedding reception, as there was what appeared to be a wedding cake on a table next to a guy wearing a tux.  We couldn't see back there any further than that.

It took about an hour before we got our food.  The waiter kept apologizing to us.  I guess he had been getting shorted on tips all night.  I ate my salad with no dressing, one of the giant rolls they brought us, and drank about a gallon of lemonade.  When I finally got my chicken parmigiani, I was full.  I ate some of it, but very little, as I couldn't bear it anymore.  I took the rest of it back in a styrofoam doggy-bag.  There's a refrigerator and a microwave in my hotel room.  I can have it later.  In the restaurant's defense, there was a really cute girl working the bar.

On the way back to the convention, we stopped by the hotel I was staying at, so I could drop my food in the fridge.  Well, not drop it, but more like place it gently into the fridge.  The process was quite complex, and involved opening and closing a door.  On both my way in and my way out, I noticed a variety of special people wearing green shirts that had something written on them about the Special Olympics.  Apparently, the Summer Games were taking place during this same weekend.  On the way down, we piled about 15 people into the elevator.  It was not fun.  Special people have a tendency to be overweight.  I was terrified of the prospect that the elevator might stop and someone would start crying.  Given the circumstances, it could have been me.  Honestly, though, the retards were nice people.

When we got back to the convention, I saw an opportunity for another interview.  Unfortunately, the battery in the camcorder had died.  At least I discovered this before asking for an interview.  The switch was in review mode.

After I stopped crying, we got some pictures of cosplayers.  Shortly afterwards, I headed back to the hotel to drop off my camcorder and let it recharge.  I had to drop off something else in the bathroom while I was there.  While I felt relieved at the moment, the walk back to the convention seemed much longer than it had before.  When I finally arrived at the doors, I was somehow wearing a ragged cloak, and was propping myself up with a large, crooked tree branch, while begging for water in a cracked whisper.  It wasn't so much a walk as it was an odyssey.  And to think, I had just walked this way like 30 minutes ago.

For the next couple hours, I was just hanging out at the Anime USA table.  It was pretty fun.  Bob was there with me.  Just me and Bob, manning the Anime USA table.  Yup.  So... you see the game last night?  I dunno what game.  I don't follow sports.  Yeah, so I think there's something on the TV.  You see that?  Me neither.  Yup, sittin' at the table.  That's what I was doin'.

At some point, Bob brought up the subject that my camera's battery should fully recharge in two hours.  Well, after the two hours had passed since I dropped it off, I decided to make the trek back to get it.  I met up with Dave and Jay on my way back to the hotel.  They were heading for the convention hotel, as they had just arrived.  They walked back with me to my hotel room.  I mentioned I was getting my camcorder, and Jay mentioned he had his.  I'm pretty sure we got his camcorder from his room before we left.  They were on the same floor as me, just five or eight doors down.

Upon arriving at my room after a brisk walk, I discovered that the battery was, indeed, fully charged.  Yay.  So I grabbed it and went back.  Bob noted that he had almost the same camera, but he had a 6-hour battery for his.  He went and got it, and it was about three times the size of my battery.  If only I had known earlier, I could have avoided an epic journey that could rival those in tales told by Homer.  Now that I was equipped with Battery Omega and an additional cameraman, all the cosplayers had disappeared.  What, they don't stay out after midnight?

Dave and Jay set out on their own to peruse the convention.  It was a reasonable venture, and the decision probably benefited them somehow, assuming they didn't get lost in the maze of doors, stairs, and trans-dimensional mirrors.  I can't be certain, but I think Jay's shirt was untucked the next time I saw him.  I'm pretty sure it was tucked when I met up with him that night.  And I think there was lipstick on Dave's collar, but he swears it didn't get there by a pair of twin nympho-catgirls getting all freaky on them in the back-halls of the lower lobby level, near the pool.  "Honest."

During all this non-sense, I saw Jean again.  She was without her red cape, as someone had taken it.  She seemed to know who, but I wasn't really paying attention.  It's not as if I would remember, anyway.  Personally, I have no problems with cute girls wearing less clothing.  Unless they're 12 or below.  Actually, I think I've gotten to the point where that number has increased to 14 or 15.  I haven't checked recently.  All the girls in my pornos are either over 20 or anime.  Regardless of all that, I received at least one more hug from her.

I don't know what happened next.  It was all so fast.  Either that, or not that much happened, and my memory compressed all the events in order to save space, and it seems like a lot happened over the next three hours.  I recall something about destroying our minds by watching short movies Brendan was subjecting us to.  If anyone else remembers anything about the first three hours of Saturday, please let me know.  I arrived back at my hotel room at about 3:30am.  I probably fell asleep around 4:00am.  You never remember the moment before you fall asleep.

------ Saturday ------

Woke up quick, at about noon.  Just thought that I had to be in Compton soon.  I gotta get drunk before the day begins, before my mother starts bitching about my friends.

Oh, wait.  Wrong story.

I woke up early, around 11:00am.  Well, I actually woke up about 30 times between then and 9:00am, but I actually got up at 11:00am.  I took a shower, got dressed, put my contacts back in, walked the dog, painted the fence, got my camcorder, and headed out.  Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened on my way there, except that the aliens were unusually friendly and left out the coarse anal probing.  That's always the worst part of the abductions.

Did I mention I ironed my shirt?  The same one I ironed when I was at Katsucon.  You see, I was determined to wear it, and because of the wrinkles, I had actually not worn it since Katsucon.  So, I ironed it again.  It took me about 20 minutes, not because the task was difficult, but because the shirt was just in that bad of condition.  Some wrinkles just wouldn't succumb.  I'd get a great many wrinkles flattened out right away, but then, on the hills, were the rebel wrinkles.  The way you deal with rebels is with constant pressure, never relenting.  If a little heat doesn't force them down, then you just go back at it with a lot of heat.  That'll keep those bastards down.  And once I had flattened them, the shirt was mine!

After that, I needed a drink.  Shirt wars can really wear you out.

Post-abduction, I arrived at the convention hotel.  I entered, as usual, walked down the hall, as usual, and then sat at the Anime USA table, as usual.  It was where it was usually at, as usual.  Unusually, there was nothing unusual about it.  You could say it was unusually usual, but I won't, so you probably shouldn't either.

When I saw Jean, she had been swimming.  Her hair was wet but she was wearing dry clothes.  I greeted her with a warm embrace.  She smelled like pool.  She also told me she was going swimming again later.  I told her that I'd go, but I didn't bring any swimming wear.  Apparently, neither did she.  I think we hung out for a while, but I can't be too sure.  We did at several points during the day, I just don't know if this was one of them.

Lilly is an artist, and was at the table next to us.  She would draw and color anime-styled portraits of people on the back of an index card for $5.  It was quite popular, as she was quite good.  All the portraits actually looked like the people they were of.  This might seem like an odd thing to say, but someone else was doing something similar.  Robert DeJesus is a professional artist, and had a table in the dealer's room.  I didn't see it myself, but that's what I heard.  He was making these ID badges for people for $14 (that's the amount I heard, but never confirmed it).  These ID badges contained a portrait.  It was smaller than the ones Lilly was doing, and aside from the color and resemblance of style in the hair, looked nothing like the person it was of.  In fact, he drew the exact same face for every single person.  People told me he didn't even look at them until he got to the hair, which was the last part he did before coloring.

I mention these two things together because, at some point, Robert DeJesus's wife came by and visited the table.  I wasn't there, but I heard about it enough.  She was talking about how her husband was doing a portrait thing in the dealer's room.  I also hear she made some less-than-respectful comments.  When she came back later, which I was also not present for, she brought security with her, and came with the intent of kicking Lilly out of the convention for making the portraits, talking some shit about copyright infringement.  The security people weren't about to kick an artist out for something like that, but they also didn't want to piss off the wife of an important guest of the convention, so they compromised.  Lilly was no longer allowed to punch holes in the index cards.  As I said, I wasn't there, but I heard about it... for the next many hours.

I ultimately didn't get that many interviews.  Maybe around ten.  The one I'm most proud of is the interview with the girl dressed as Subaru from .hack//SIGN.  She was just so damn cute.  It wasn't so much the kind of cute where you look at her and go "Damn, she's cute."  It was more in the way she acted.  She had kind of a bashful but social thing going on.  The blue hair and wings kinda helped, too (no fetishes were involved in coming to this conclusion).

Mid-afternoon, I got kind of hungry, and headed off to the buffet to infiltrate it and report back to the crew on the quality and extent of it.  It was very small.  There were three people when I entered, and they had just finished.  They closed the doors while I was still eating, and when I finished they began changing the room.  Not wanting to hang around, I asked for a cup of ice and some more cranberry juice.  Somehow, it took 10 minutes to bring me these.  Once I had them, I reported back to Christian that the buffet sucked and was pretty closed now.

Christian, Tripp, Jason and I were wandering around at some point for some reason, although I don't know why.  I don't think we ever found what it was we were looking for, or it could be that we found where it was and it wasn't there.  Regardless of any of that, we had to go to the bathroom at some point.  The one closest to the location of the thing that wasn't there even though we were there for it [pause] only had two toilets, so we had to go in turns.

While Christian and Jason were in the bathroom, Tripp and I were out in the hall conversing, scheming, plotting world domination, that sort of thing.  Then I had a brilliant idea.  I retrieved the walkie talkie from my pocket (which was the only place I could keep it from falling on the floor every five minutes), held it a good 12" from my face, and sang a verse from Frank Sinatra's "Brazil".  When I was done, Jason replied across the walkie talkie "Uh, WTF?"  No, he didn't say "What the fuck", he said "WTF".  Same thing, but wouldn't get you in trouble at school.  Man, that was crazy.  I'm surprised someone didn't get hurt.  I mean, I'm not a terribly good singer.  I'm not tone deaf or anything, but when you hear the wrong note, it's too late to change it, because you've already sung it.  Being... um... not tone deaf... I guess... it doesn't really help you sing.

We stopped by the indoor pool for no reason at all other than to verify its openness.  While in the very warm humidity, we saw Jean and Brendan.  They were swimming.  Jean was dressed in her underwear.  I'm going to assume Brendan was also dressed in his underwear, as in my talks with him later he mentioned that had not planned on going swimming while here.  However, I didn't pay much attention to him.  I was too focused on the wet, scantilly-clad jailbait standing before me.  I think we spoke for less than a minute.  Then we hugged.  It was always a fantasy of mine to hug a wet, naked girl, but that fantasy often involves sex immediately afterward, and Jean was not naked.  Not that she was of legal age, anyway.

Sometime later during the night, a certain artist (not naming Lilly... I mean names) got a little plastered.  We hear she may have only had one drink, which led to many movie references (particularly "Back to the Future 3").  While videotaping her, I tried to get her to draw something.  Unfortunately, everyone kept throwing random wild ideas at her, so she couldn't have even tried to draw something, really.  I didn't really help with my complete lack of suggestions.  She would try to draw something, I'm not really sure what, but then she would forget what she was doing.  When she decided she was going to do some DDR, we decided that it was time for her to have a brief 12-hour nap.  Me and another guy I don't know followed a girl who was of jailbait age to her hotel room.  She insisted she could walk by herself, but she really couldn't.  We did let her try the stairs by herself, but she kept going up them after she got to the top.  After we got her into bed, we painted her face and took pictures of her.  No, wait, that was a different party.  We just went back to the con.  How anti-climactic.

I met Kat for the first time after the cosplay.  She was coming in from the dance, and she noticed my badge read "Darxim" as she walked by.  She smelled of cinnamon.  I think.  Or maybe that was the cookies.  Those were some good cookies.  Wait, I didn't have any cookies.  It must have been her.  I had a cookie yesterday.  Maybe that was it.  Anyway, enough about Kat, let me tell you about this cookie I met... wait, I got that backwards. Start over.

I met Kat for the first time after the cosplay.  She was no longer wearing her Hatsuharu costume.  Well, short of the gray hair, she was.  She had cowboy boots with spurs that made both stairs and the act of kneeling new experiences in their own respects.  I only had the pleasure of watching her navigate stairs, although it was the other act I more wanted to witness third-hand.  I don't even have a third hand.

Kat likes to hug people.  I don't know if this condition existed previous to the convention or not, as people who otherwise never hug anyone are quite open to hugs at conventions, most more actively than others.  There is also much glomping, and people advocating such behavior with the use of signs.  I like signs.  They're like thought balloons for reality.  However, I have only ever hugged one girl carrying a sign soliciting the act (at Otakon), as several other people were doing it and the severe concentration of it all made it highly infectious.  I didn't even know it had happened until the doctors told me about it at the hospital.  I heard they sealed off the entire convention center with a giant tent and evacuated the rest of the city's population, while closely weeding out the glomp-infected.  I recall that was the same year the sewers exploded.  Baltimore is one crazy town.

I was going somewhere else with that "Kat likes to hug people" thing, I'm sure.  Well, wherever it was, they don't have cookies there, and I'm an advocate of the cookie, although only very specific kinds.  Kat is not the kind of cookie you eat.  You see, she's married.  She also squirms when poked.  It would be more fun if she squeaked, either instead of or in addition to.  Squirming can only fully be enjoyed if there is the prospect of sex, whereas squeaking is fun entirely independent of sex.  The nice thing about married women, though, is that you know why they aren't sleeping with you, and it actually does have nothing to do with you (unless you happen to be the one she's married to, then you're in trouble).  Sure, it may not be the only reason, but that's a bridge you'll never come to.

Kat said the reason she left the dance was because some random guy was trying to get jiggy with her, and she wasn't havin' it.  Boy got no action.  He got dogged.  He got the palm in the face as she evacuated the place.  He got to check out dat ass, but only as it was leavin'.  He had to memorize the back, cause he ain't seein' the front.  He got a good look at where he wasn't goin'.  Kat don't play dat, and was givin' nothin' up to him.  I, on the other hand, got several hugs from her, over the short period of time we were together.

For some reason we decided to head on down to the Shoujo panel.  It was something Christian wanted to do.  It was a trick finding the room.  "In a room with many doors, you must find the door obscured.  That is the proper path to the Shoujo panel."  These cryptic directions just don't work.  They should've just said "It's behind a pillar, near one of the elevators."  That's where it was.

The Shoujo panel was being run by two large people.  I am not implying that they were tall, as they were only about as tall as I am, if not shorter, but they made up for their lack of additional height with additional width.  It was one male and one female.  The male looked like the kind of guy who doesn't remember what sun looks like (I at least have faint memories of it) and the female looked like she had been married for 20 years, but not to the male sitting next to her.  The male was also running plushie-con, which I heard was strange, but did not actually attend myself.

The Shoujo panel, or at least the portion of it for which we were present, seemed to be a discussion on what makes an anime a Shoujo anime.  I offered my part that Shoujo was typically more character-driven, while Shounen was more event-driven, but the truth of the matter is Shoujo anime is simply any anime whose target audience is girls, and has no regard for the actual content of the anime.  This point was never made.  We abandoned the panel due to lack of logical content.

It had been a while since we ate, so we looked to hotel provision for sustenance.  Unfortunately, this somehow ended up in Christian talking to Steve Bennet and the rest of us sitting on a couch until the fire alarm went off.  Then the fire alarm went off.  We quickly abandoned the building before everyone else realized that they, too, had to abandon the building.  That, and because it was loud.

Outside, our group mingled with the group of people who came for the night-club that was apparently in the hotel.  I think the whole lot of them were black (I'm not racist, I just didn't see any other ethnicity represented), and most of them smoked.  There is some law of physics that states, and I'll paraphrase it for you now, "Regardless of wind, gravity, and reason, cigarette smoke always goes towards those who don't want it."  If not for that, I would not have mentioned them.

The firetrucks came soon enough, and stayed for a while.  Then, once they had confirmed that there was no actual fire, we were all allowed to go back into the hotel.  However, since we were so close to where the dance was, and already outside, we headed over to check it out.  Kat was afraid that guy would still be there, but we did not run across him.  I had my camcorder with me, and took a pan shot (not panty shot) of the room.  Andrew, who I had seen earlier in drag, was there.  I wanted to get a shot of him dancing, as he was still in drag, but he was helping with the more technical side of the dance, so I had no such luck.

I don't remember if I talked to Andrew before or after that time.  I know I had seen him briefly in the hallway as I passed by when I was doing a walk-through of the convention on video, and that I talked to him later.  He was actually quite skilled at his hobby.  If I didn't know him so well, and had he even attempted a female-like walk, I might have been fooled from afar.  He doesn't have a girlish face, and because I knew him previously, I was able to recognize him even from down the hall, so at no moment was I fooled.  When I asked him about it, though, he told me a story.

Andrew went to Hooters for dinner with some friends... and he did so dressed as a girl.  He said he got the five-yard stare.  A guy from a few tables down would start checking him out, maybe even start to make a move, when his facial expression would change dramatically as he realized the truth of what he beheld.  Honestly, it was a story that required Andrew's presentation to truly appreciate, but humorous in the retelling nonetheless.

Kat was considering driving back home even though it was now after midnight and she was sleepy.  She desperately needed caffeine.  Bob mentioned he had a case of Mountain Dew back in his hotel room.  We went there to retrieve the brew... dew, whatever.  I believe Christian had already retired at this time, and he was staying in the same room as Bob, so we did not enter.  Bob gave Kat the concoction and then himself retired.  It was late.

We were almost back to the hotel when we were accosted by Rent-A-Cop.  He asked us questions, and as Kat seems to lack the ability to lie to security personnel of any kind, she blabbed the scheme and our plans were ruined.  There would be no conquering of any planets this night.  The security guard gave us a brief lecture which could be summarized with "Stay out of this part of the hotel."  He used many more sentences to tell us, though.

We tried out the music video room, but the videos they were showing when we happened to enter looked like crap.  I don't know if it was the projector, or just really shitty video quality on the AMV itself, but it hurt my eyes to look at.  The videos we saw were also incredibly boring.  We stayed through two full videos, and left during the third.  The quality wasn't improving.

We hung out for a while longer, but I do not recall the happenings.  My mind was preoccupied by our earlier foiled plans that involved eating.  Foil.  I knew I had some chicken parmigiani in the fridge back in my hotel room on which a microwave sat.  I did not have any utensils, though.  I had to find some.

After a while, I found a set of plastic utensils which included a napkin on the table next to where MAGFest was setup.  It may have been their table, but I think artists were sitting there earlier.  We were pretty liberal with the table usage.  Regardless, there was no one who seemed to be the owner of it around, so I asked the guy who was vainly attempting to sleep under the table if they were his.  He claimed ownership over them, yet I'm not sure they were actually his.  He agreed to give them to me if he could hit my hair with some kind of wand.  I agreed, and he kind of tapped my hair with this purplish wand.  I'm not entirely sure what it was, actually, but I took a shower the next morning.  At the time, I was more concerned with eating and sleeping to give a damn.  You see, I was tired as well.

I then retired for the night.  It was an event of epic proportions.  I would tell it, but the story of Sunday beckons.

------ Sunday ------

I was awoken early in the morning due to third-party influence.  I figured that since it was Sunday, 10:30 was probably a good time to get up anyway.  I had to check out by noon.

I brought the camcorder in vain today, as there were very few people in costume.  Most of the people that were in costume weren't wearing all of their costume.  Sunday is always a day of winding down.  It was still an eventful day, yet I don't really remember much of those events.

We went to the lower lobby in search of cosplayers, but found someone Kat knew from the previous two days.  We all sat around a small table and conversed.  There was also some fun with the video camera.  Apparently Kat is camcorder-shy.  She seems fine in front of a still-shot camera, but not a motion video one.  Naturally, I tried to videotape her as much as possible for as long as my interest maintained its integrity, which was about 30 minutes.

Once my interest in videotaping Kat had dwindled, she began reading from a comic that had been handed out earlier for free.  It was a sex scene.  As soon as she started reading it, I started recording.  Unfortunately, it takes the camcorder about 10-15 seconds to go from off to recording, so I only got the tail-end, but you can listen to what I got of it.

The wheels they had on what would ordinarily be stationary furtniture was killer.  I just thought I'd mention that.

It's been about two months since the convention, now, so that's about all I remember of the convention that day.  There's generally not much in the way of going-ons on Sunday, anyway.  For some reason I keep thinking this one was different, but I can't actually remember the details of why.  I may update the report as I recall them.

After the convention, on our way back home, several of us stopped at Flying J's for a late lunch at the recommendation of Bob.  As a result, I learned that Bob likes crappy restaurants.  It was a crappy restaurant, with a buffet.  It was only a buffet.  A crappy buffet.  Bob said his previous experience there was better, but I can't imagine it would have been much better.  I thought the whole place was pretty crappy.  Did I mention it was crappy?  It was.  Not that I expected much from a truck stop.  Even if Bob recommended it, my expectations were low.

I swear the trip home took longer than the trip down.  Does anticipation accelerates time?  I've always heard that fun does, but I have never had much on a road trip.  The trip home is always depressing, because the 2½ days of bliss have come to an end.

Crap, now I have to write an Otakon report.  At least it will be shorter than this one.