Update: I decided to shorten the report some more. If you read it before, you may notice some of the less-interesting parts have been removed.

Katsucon has gained a bit of infamy over the years.  They now get nicknames that I'm sure the head staff are not fond of.  Katsucon 9 was renamed to "Blizzardcon", as nearly 2 feet of snow accumulated on the ground during the course of the convention, and it didn't stop snowing until the 4th day of the convention (yeah, it got extended).  Katsucon 10 got renamed to "Flucon," as nearly half the people attending got sick, although most people there Sunday also remember it for the hotel evacuation in the afternoon (but hey, it was Sunday).  This year, there was no natural phenomenon burdening congoers, and since the things that went bad are practically in competition with each other for what sucked the most, people are referring to Katsucon 11 as "Katsuckon".  Overall, just about everyone was disappointed with it, some even calling it the worst convention ever.  Honestly, I've had worse times at other conventions *cough*otakon*cough*, but I was still overly disappointed with Katsucon this year. I won't dwell on what made it suck during the report, though, because that would spoil the spirit of it.

This year, Katsucon was held in two hotels, the Crystal Gateway Marriott, and the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel.  The Marriott is connected to the Crystal City Underground, which is invariably convenient.  However, the Sheraton is not, even though it's right next door.  This means that to get from one hotel to the other, you had to walk outside and cross a semi-busy street.  This wouldn't have been so bad if the entrances to each hotel weren't so far away from each other.  To get from one to the other, you have to walk the length of the Marriott.  Also, where the crosswalk is, it's a 6-lane street.  Normally this would not be so bad, but Katsucon is in February.  This would be fine if they were holding glass-cutting contests, but unfortunately such a cold trip served no purpose but to dissuade most people from making the trek back and forth.  Since there wasn't much of anything worthwhile in the Sheraton, most people stayed in the Marriott.  Since there was nothing on the first floor of the Marriott, most everyone stayed on the upper level.  Since the upper level is basically one big hallway, this made it extremely crowded.  With overcrowding comes riots.  By the end of Katsucon, the entire east coast of the United States was destroyed.  Or, at least, that's how I remember it.

Before I get into the actual events and details about my experience at the convention, I would like to put forth this disclaimer.  I don't really remember any of it anymore.  It's been over a month since I attended the convention.  I took notes during the convention, and brainstormed immediately afterwards to make a list of almost everything that happened.  Even during the brainstorming, my memories of the convention had already begun to fade, and by the end of it, a large chunk of Sunday was missing.  Therefore, this entire story is based on the scribblings of a madman, enraptured by desire, battling minions of ev...  wait, no, that's a different convention.  Rather, this story will be recreated from my notes, with the actual details filled in as whatever I logically conclude to be the truth.  Beware; there may be slight exaggerations at times, and possibly missing details.  If you or someone you know was at the convention in question, please advise them to seek medical attention immediately, and while they are recovering, have them read my report and see if they find any inconsistencies between it and their altered perception of the events that occurred.

Katsucon 11 Report may cause side effects such as dizziness, headache, loss of memory, incredible bliss, rage, anxiety, hair loss, Godzilla, gonorrhea, invasion, sweaty palms, and other supernormal dental happenings.  Please do not use Katsucon 11 Report if you are pregnant, diabetic, cryophobic, metabolic, catatonic, light-hearted, mentally light-weight, have no eyes, inversely paraplegic, the reincarnation of Napoleon, or in possession of gobs and gobs of money (in which case, share the love!).  Discontinue use of Katsucon 11 Report if you suffer from unexpected death.  Katsucon 11 Report is not for everyone.  Consult your doctor before extensive use.

Please note that if you are somewhere in this report, and I didn't include your name, send me an email and I will alter my report to somehow further exclude your name from it.  Worst-case scenario, I will put it in with steadfast accuracy.  I am told that I excel in that department *he says with a brimmingly arrogant look of self-confidence*.  Also, new this report are many links to Wikipedia, which is a great reference site.

And now, without further ado and clamor...

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

Nothing happened.

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

The day began at midnight.  I was still awake, so as far as I was concerned, it was still Thursday.  I went to bed, and awoke that same day, just later.  Although it was the same day, I only now recognized the day as Friday.  Days of the week have to earn my recognition.

My typical day starts with a hazy fog of haze in a bit of a daze.  Although I appear to be lazy, I am merely tired.  It pays to get that extra sleep.  I do have ways to get what needs doing done.  Malaise is merely the first phase.  It never stays too long; it just plays with you a bit.  It's kinda crazy.  However, today's malaise betrays clichés and displays a raise of haze that allays my gaze, which sways and decays as it strays to survey the rays of sunshine I appraise.  You could say I was amazed, but perhaps I should rephrase, for they were simply light arrays, and perhaps not deserving of such praise.

I had an interview that morning, and afterwards I had to pick up flyers from the printer. Once I got those two tasks out of the way, I was off. The trip to Crystal City is generally about a half hour with mild traffic.  I arrived at the hotel about an hour after my initial departure.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love to drive?  Being in a car for long periods of time is pure bliss to me, much like fucking a cactus.  Oh, how I look forward to trips.

The drive-in entrance to the Sheraton is a bit tricky.  You have to drive in where the exit is, then immediately turn, run over pedestrians, then make another turn into the entrance.  It looks kind of like an inverted Z, as if bizarro Zorro was the architect.  You can't just turn in where the entrance is, because that's exit-only.  When you come out of the exit, you have to do the same thing, only the Z is normal, as if regular Zorro was the architect, and he was angry.

Since I couldn't figure out the entrance on the first pass, I had to drive around the block and circle back.  Blocks in Crystal City aren't like normal city blocks.  You come up to the next street and take a right.  That street goes under a bridge, which is where you would turn to circle the block, but you can't because you're going under a bridge.  After that, the street starts to curve left.  Then you don't know where you are anymore, but you're pretty sure that if you keep turning right, you'll end up back at the hotel.  So I took the next two rights.  Somehow I ended up in Alaska.  I didn't see any polar bears, but I did manage to find Route 1 again.  Route 1 is probably the only road I have ever truly hated.  Every experience I have with Route 1 is a bad one.  I call it "The Road From Hell".  Most people just call it Route 1.  Upon reaching Route 1, which is the road that I drove under earlier, I came to realize why circling the block was so difficult.  One of the roads on that block was Route 1.  I crossed over Route 1, knowing there was a road on the other side that ran parallel to it, and followed that road back to the hotel.  I entered through the exit and then the entrance, which may have teleported me to another dimension that looks like a parking garage.  I parked my car between an SUV and a unicorn, then headed up to the lobby to check in.  There were a few unconscious pedestrians on the hood of my car for some reason, but I paid them no mind.

The elevator up from the parking garage sounds very much like a foghorn.  In fact, it may have been a foghorn.  Perhaps in a previous life that elevator had been a large ship, and it refused to let go.  I knew a guy like that once.  He just wouldn't give up that foghorn.

The lobby was under construction, and looked like one of those janky haunted houses you see at firehouses on Halloween, but with the lights on.  It was also very cold.  The "front desk" was a few tables with white sheets draped over them, some computers, and some shivering people in hotel garb.  I walked up to one of the shivering staff and stated that I would like to check in.  Somehow, the hotel had been booked solid the night before, and they had no rooms available to allow me to check in early, so I had to wait until 3:00 to check in.

After putting my bag back into my car, I decided to head to the convention hotel.  I know that the Sheraton was also a convention hotel, but I have no interest in video rooms.  I also needed to find the Anime USA table, which was in the Marriott.  I returned to the lobby to make my way outside.  There was a regular house door to the left of the elevators that you had to go through to get outside.  Once through the door, you are in a narrow hallway.  It is just wide enough for two people to pass each other without crushing each other too much.  Immediately through the door, you turn right.  Then you turn right again.  Then a werewolf jumps out at you and says "Booga booga!" Then you turn left.  Then you are at the main entrance and overly frozen.

The path to the Marriott was of expeditionary proportions.  I've had shorter dredges across tundra.  First, you go out the front of the Sheraton.  The main entrance feeds directly to where cars drive across, as if it was a ped dispenser.  People step out of the front door and splatter on some poor sap's windshield.  Fortunately, traffic was light at the time and I managed to avoid getting squashed.  Once you get out of the ped dispenser area, you take a right, and end up faced with a 6-lane crosswalk of doom.  When the light changes to "Walk", it plays the music from Frogger.  After jumping from logs to crocodiles, you're on sidewalk again.  You are now at the Southwestern corner of the Marriott.  The entrance is on the North side.  There are doors along the way, but you cannot use them.  Also along the way, there is a giant pile of sand on a tarp that you have to kind of walk around.  Nobody knows why it's there.

You turn the corner and you think you're finally at the entrance.  You're in the entrance area, but the actual entrance is receded into the building, so you have to keep walking.  The entrance consists of two side doors and one big revolving door.  The revolving door was out of service, so you could only use the side doors.  Surprisingly enough, this didn't lead to too many problems of traffic flow, just an occasional slamming into one another.  I did wonder why the revolving door was out of service.  Those things always remind me of a dough mixer, only instead of dough, it's constantly processing people.  I'm not entirely sure why, but it reminds me of this new food product on the market called "Soylent Green".  I'm sure it's nothing.

As soon as I entered the Marriott, I saw Andy (aka Goldwing), Nick (aka Harsh Resonance and Thavius), and their friend Jake (aka Jake).  Andy and Nick make up the Catgirl Fanboy Ninja Duo, of which I am an honorary ally.  I'm not entirely sure what led to this status, but I believe there was a Jade Buddha and the destruction of several planets involved.  Although, it may have had something to do with a forum thread, but the former theory is more plausible, so I'll run with that.

The crew was looking for Kat.  No, that's not a pun.  Kat was their roommate, and she had booked the room, so they needed to find her to get into the room and drop their stuff off.  Me, I only had one roommate, as usual.  This time my roommate was Christian, but I had booked our room, so he had to find me.

Back to my exploits.  Andy pointed me to the pre-reg line, after which we parted ways.  The pre-reg line was very short.  By very short, I mean there were three people in it.  Yes, it actually was short.  Why do you not believe me?  I approached the table in record time.  The girl behind the table couldn't find my pre-made badge, so she just wrote my name on the back of a blank one and gave that to me.  I felt so unloved that I cried.  Also, I had no place to draw my usual self-portrait.  I wrote "Darxim" on the badge in pure agony, gathered together the tattered remains of my life, and moved on.

Before I got to the actual convention area, I saw Xen.  I met Xen at Anime USA last year.  She is very short, but also very cute.  Unfortunately, she's uninterested in me sexually (I guess someone has to be), but friends are good things to have, too.  Sex can ruin a perfectly good friendship, especially when it's between two straight men.  Xen is most definitely not a straight man (nor any other kind of man), but my point still stands.

I postponed my search for the Anime USA table to hang out with Xen for a while.  We were in this room without seating furniture, and the room is more of a room-shaped hallway, as there's nothing really in it that makes it a room, but there's an open entrance on one side, and an open entrance on the other, and people walk from one to the other, so in that respect it's basically a hallway.   Still, it had enough space on either side of the stream of people to take to a corner and just chill, so that's what we did for a while.  Xen was looking for a girl with pink hair, and for some strange reason, she was having trouble finding her.  ...   Yes, you can laugh now.  Yeah, like you haven't had the same problem.

"I'm looking for my friend.  Have you seen her?"

"What's she look like?"

"Well, she's dressed up as Sailor Moon."

"Oh, yeah, there she is.  And there.  And there.  Oh, there's three of your friend."

Yeah, some things are a futile struggle.  Man versus reality.  Or, in this case, Xen versus an anime convention.  Pink hair.  Have you seen that movie "Closer"?  Natalie Portman in the pink wig.  Now that was hot.  It also helped that she had very little clothing on.  Ah, what a great movie.  ...   Wait, what was I talking about?  Oh, right, Xen.  She's a nice girl.  Well, maybe not to you, but she's nice to me, and that's what really matters.  She's also a talented musician.  She plays piano and sings.  To look at her, you wouldn't suspect that she's such a great singer.  Of course, I guess that's not the best way to judge the way someone sounds, anyway.  For instance, you might look at me and think I'm a great singer.  You'd be sorely disappointed.  Karaoke has proven me to be a worse singer than even I imagined.  So much for my dreams of being a pop idol sensation. *sigh*

Alas, I had to move on and find the Anime USA table.  You see, I was bringing the flyers, and I was probably already late.  I got a hug from Xen (which seems to be the most I can get from her *grumble*) and moved on.  It was a mission-critical decision.  The sacrifices I make for Anime USA.  I deserve a medal.

In my search for that Anime USA table, I found Steve Lin.  He's not what I was looking for, but he happened to be sitting at the Anime USA table, temporarily using it to promote his store.  He would have been at a table in the dealer's room, but Katsucon won't let him have one anymore.  The important thing was that his presence at the table made it all that much easier to find.  As soon as I found the table, it was off to get the flyers.  Steve informed me that there was a box of miscellaneous stuff under the table.  I noted that and made my way back to the hotel to retrieve one of the giant boxes of flyers from the trunk of my car.

The return to my car was like doing everything I had just done in reverse.  As you leave the hotel, you get hit with a blast of hot air, which makes absolutely sure that that you cannot adjust to the arctic temperatures just beyond.  It's a truly sadistic system.  Somehow, this blast of hot air doesn't help the lobby be any warmer.

I made my way through people wearing white sheets with eyeholes cut in them to the elevators of the Sheraton.  I'm sure there was a point where I exited the Marriott, walked the cold and lonely street once more, and leaped over seventy cars, all while being chased by a pack of leopards before I reached the Sheraton, but it's probably not worth mentioning.  It's strange, though, because leopards don't usually hunt in packs.  Well, it is the city.  I made it to my car, and nabbed a large box of flyers.  2,500 5x8" cards weigh quite a bit, especially when you add in the weight of the cardboard box.  However, I was determined I would make the trip back non-stop.  This proved to be a poor choice of action.

By the time I reached the hotel, my arms had each gotten several inches longer.  I saw Tripp, Ashley, and Dave in the lobby.  We didn't talk much, as I was in a state of determination, and the gravity of the situation weighed heavily in my arms.  Tripp mentioned that the box with the program books was under the table.  That must be the box of miscellany that Steve had referred to before.  The mystery was unraveling.  *dramatic music*

I finally reached the Anime USA table after navigating hordes of zombies that were wholly intent upon delaying me, and possibly devouring my brains.  My arms had fallen off at some point, so I was now carrying the box in my teeth.  The box is about 6 times the size of my head, so you can imagine how difficult this was.  I dropped the box behind the table.  I think Steve was still there.  Shortly after I arrived with the flyers, he departed.  I'm not sure if he had other business or if he was just horrified by the sight of an armless man.  Christian had arrived at the table in the brief moment I was gone.  He brought a bunch of promotional-type stuff with him.  He likes to carry around lots of stuff.

I decided to man the table for a while, although mostly for recovery rather than to actually do any promotions.  Geoffrey showed up, and took over the table next to us that was reserved for the Baltimore Science Fiction Society (they run Balticon).  He began running a DDR Name-That-Tune game, playing the songs off his iPod, and rewarding those who won with pocky.  Eventually the BSFS showed up and kicked him off their table.  He moved down to the next one.  That table may have been claimed at some point, because a computer materialized on it running Stepmania.  They didn't have a pad, so they had to use a keyboard.  Somehow it still drew quite a bit of attention.  Geoffrey could usually be found there the rest of the convention.

When I came back to the table from... somewhere... Kat and others were at the table.  Kat was dressed as a catgirl of some sort.  Her outfit consisted of cat ears, modified jeans that she uses for another costume, and a black bikini top.  She had a pair of glasscutters with her for some reason.  I think she was wearing some kind of footwear, but that's not the kind of thing a guy would notice.  Venus was there, too, but all she said was that she was working in a video room all day and that we would not see her until tomorrow.  Such are the problems of slav... er, volunteers.

Kat was looking for Andy and Nick, who were both in turn looking for her.  I think there was an episode of The Twilight Zone about this.  Anyway, I got Kat's cell number in case I saw the ninjas again.  I wrote it so that I couldn't mistake it for anything else: "Naked Kat's Cell Number".  Kat questioned why I was writing "Naked" when she was very obviously clothed.  She merely lacks imagination, which I have in great abundance (and you'd never know it unless I told you, because I very rarely exercise it *shifty eyes*).  One tug in the right place (albeit a very hard tug) and her upper body would've been completely exposed.  Her lower body would've required a series of tugs and possibly the involvement of power tools before that would've been exposed, but I don't like to think about difficult things, so I'll just stick with my "one tug and she's naked" theory.

After that group of whoever left, it was back to casual hanging out.  Then Nick walked by.  I gave him Kat's number.  I actually meant to only give him Kat's number, but he ended up taking the entire paper that I had written the number on.  That was my notes paper.  You see, I have trouble remembering things, so I always carry paper and a pen with me so I can write things down that I need to remember.  I don't always remember to look at it, but it helps sometimes.  Now I was without that paper, and thus a small chunk of my memory was gone.  It's tragic, I know.  Shortly after Nick went to find Andy or someone, I saw Kat again.  She had already seen Andy and given him her cell number, so the whole me-losing-my-memory thing was for naught.  Kat said she would get my memory back for me, and so she did at some point later in the day...  and there was much rejoicing.

When Kat came back another time, she was wearing a collar.  Upon her arrival at the table, she broke out a leash and attached it, then handed it to me.  That's right, I had a catgirl on a leash.  I was the leash master, and all cowered in my domain!  Of course, as always, my glory is diminished by the fact that she's married, although not as much as it would be were she married to me (because what kind of triumph would that be?).

Before dark, Geoffrey was already wearing a glowstick shirt.  He took a black shirt and attached a bunch of glowsticks to it.  I wasn't around for the attachment process, but I imagine it was quite horrifying.  Once the sun set, it would look pretty cool, but at the time, sun was still pouring in the windows behind us, and it just looked like some strange accessories.  Strange, colorful accessories.  It was almost as if he was making a statement of some kind.  ...   Or maybe not.

Under constant pressure and threat of death from Christian, I finally checked into the hotel.  Afterwards, Christian took his stuff to the room.  I warned him about the werewolf.  He never listens to me.

Psycho le Cému was playing at Katsucon that night, and again on Sunday.  The concert was scheduled to begin at 9:00pm, so naturally there was some kind of line already formed at 6:00pm.  These brave, tortured souls lined up 3 hours early so they could get closer to the front than the poor bastards behind them.  Of course, as we know, Katsucon schedules are more like suggestions than an actual list of start times.  Excuse me while I overstep chronology for a moment.  At 9:00pm, as expected, they had not started letting people into the main events room.  The people in the front of the line were naturally a bit peeved, but unjustly so, because they knew the concert wouldn't start on time.  It was then announced that the concert would actually begin at 11:00pm, as there was some kind of delay in getting started.  This was a bit more of a delay than these people had expected.  At 11:45pm, I decided to walk the length of the line for reasons I will explain once I actually get to 11:45pm.  The line crossed the entire upper floor, came back around, went downstairs, spanned the entire downstairs, and looped around yet again, possibly going back upstairs and feeding into itself, creating one of those snake-eating-itself type situations.  They had stopped the escalators at some point, and people were sitting on the steps in line.  Finally, shortly after midnight, they started letting people in.  It was a bizarre feeling standing between the lines, each going opposite directions, both with the same ultimate destination.  The concert actually began around 12:30am.  I checked it out for a few minutes, and the room was not quite as crowded as one would expect from the ginormity of the line.  The sound was too loud for the speakers, so while the music may have been quite good, you wouldn't have known from being there.  Such is the typical tragedy of concerts.

I will touch on the subject of the concert again later.  And now, we return you to our regularly scheduled chronology.

I was standing around the Anime USA table handing out flyers to random passerbyers, sometimes sitting behind it looking at people, thinking, "I should probably throw flyers at them.  Just chuck a huge stack at them.  They'll probably notice at least one." While I was in standing mode, Riji came up to me.  I apparently met her at Anime USA last year.  She had dressed as some version of Mana I'm not familiar with, and looked exceptionally different than she did as she stood before me at Katsucon, entirely out of costume (but, to my disappointment, in regular clothes).  She looked so different that I did not recognize her.  You know how it is, cute girl comes up to you, apparently knows you, you just smile and nod and get a hug and such.  Eventually she'll call you on not knowing who she is, but by then, you've already charmed her.  She was a lot cuter out of costume, though (see?).

While I was chatting with Riji, Mark showed up.  I hadn't actually expected him to show up.  About the same time, one of Riji's friends showed up.  I think her alias is Star Angel, or something astrally divine.  Riji talked to her friend, I to mine.  Then Riji and her SA went off somewhere, possibly in relation to the impending concert.  Mark was all like, "Why you ain't be tryin' t' tag dat booty?" and I was all like, "Fo' shizzle, foo, you be trippin'." Word.

While Mark and I were standing around pretending to have interesting conversation, Asha showed up.  I had met Asha at a party last year, and also previous to that at an NVAA meeting.  She is a cute Indian girl (that's Indian, not Native American).  The three of us wandered around for a bit.  It was difficult to wander in a group, as there is heavy pedestrianesque traffic in all corridors.  For once I wished that Katsucon had decent programming, so as to reduce the traffic present, but alas, it wasn't so.  The concert line made the area especially congested for reasons I have already transcribed.

Asha parted ways with us so she could go hang out with the cool kids in line for the concert.  Her objective was actually to get into the concert.  At this point, the official start time was 11:00pm, but we all know when it really started.  Well, I hope you do, because I've already told you, but I know you're not really listening, you're just watching me dance.  It's okay, I get that a lot.  It's hard to be so funky.  That's why Mark and I went to eat at IHOP.  I told Asha I would look for her in line when I returned before she departed for her epic immobile voyage.  For those of you interested in chronology for some reason, this was somewhere between 8:00pm and 10:00pm.  After IHOP, Mark dropped me off at the hotel and went home.  He wasn't planning a return to the convention of any kind.  Made me wonder why he came at all.  All he really did at the convention was hang out with me and Asha for a bit.  Maybe it was too crowded for him.  Tony said he left early because there was nowhere to sit.  I kind of got that same feeling the whole weekend, but I was committed to staying for the entirety of it, as is my usual practice.

Walking around the convention, I met up with Xen again.  She was still looking for her pink-haired friend.  I pointed at a girl with pink hair and said, "There's one." But, alas, it was hot pink, which Xen describes as "Goth pink".  I'm pretty sure that hot pink is not Goth pink, but then the whole idea of "Goth" has been so perverted over the last decade that you may as well put on a business suit and say "I'm Goth." At anime conventions, we have "Gothic Lolita," which is pretty much the last bastion of anything really Goth, and even that has started to become tainted.  At any rate, the pink of the hair of the girl she was looking for was regular, cute pink, and not hot "Goth" pink like the girl I pointed out had.

"There's one," I said, pointing out a very hot nurse with long, non-Goth pink hair (picture courtesy of GreatSG; she looks better in person, as most people do).  Turns out that wasn't her, either.  I guess there are greater tragedies in the world.  To describe this pink nurse... Basically, you take a perfect body, put it in one of those hot nurse outfits you see on TV but never in real life, pinkify it, and add long, non-Goth pink hair.  That was her.  She had her character down, even to the walk.  Xen calls it the "fuck walk".  At a normal social event, she might have guys pouring off of her with that kind of an outfit/walk combination, but at an anime convention, us poor fools have minds gone blank at the sight of such beauty.  We'd be one of those babbling fools you see in Looney Tunes trying to initiate conversation.  I, for one, have a massive fear of rejection.  For me to be able to talk to a girl like that, I'd have to completely and entirely give up on any hopes of getting with her.  Otherwise, I'd be too nervous to even think right.  In this case, it's not that she was that hot (even though she was), it's just that my brain breaks down and ceases to function at such levels of stress.  I'd need something to work off of.  When I met Xen, she was dressed as a hybrid of Visual Kei and Alex from A Clockwork Orange.  I had paragraphs of opening to work with.  With a girl dressed as a nurse, what are you going to say?  "I was in a hospital once." Yeah, good luck making headway with that opener.

Xen and I talked about other things, but casual conversation doesn't usually survive in my brain for very long, so I'm not sure what subjects were discussed.  World peace and cold fusion were discussed at great lengths, I'm sure.  After unlocking the mysteries of the universe, Xen decided to peruse the halls (both of them) to find her pink-haired friend.  I, now without company, decided to go off in search of company, namely Asha.  It was about 11:45pm at this point, so the concert surely must have started by now... as if you couldn't see the line.

I walked the entire length of the line, which was quite windy.  I didn't see Asha in it anywhere.  Perhaps she gave up on the concert and went somewhere else.  Perhaps I passed her by without noticing, even though she was actually who I was looking for.  That's happened far too often.  It's like when you're looking for your keys and they're on the table.  You look right at them, but think, "They couldn't be in such an obvious place," so you keep looking elsewhere.  Dismayed, I wandered aimlessly, a solitary soul lost in the night.

I met up with Andy, Kat, Bryan, Amber, and Jake.  They were all dressed strangely formally.  They had gotten all dolled up for the 80's dance, which was to take place at midnight.  Considering the start time of the concert, a midnight start time for the dance seemed unlikely.  Hell, having the dance at all seemed unlikely at this point.  They were all hanging out together outside where the dance was to be held, which, as you may have guessed, was also where the concert was.  Kat and Amber kept whispering things back and forth.  I tried to listen in on what they were giggling about, but I couldn't hear them over the background noise of people and concert.  It was somewhere around this time I randomly checked out the concert.  Eventually I just wandered off entirely.

I saw Mike-o, who previously has told me he goes by Meekrat now (or Meekstranger, I can't remember, it's been a few years since he told me; I still call him Mike-o), although I'm not sure if that's still the case.  Mike-o is a guy who has killed himself a number of times.  He has never attempted suicide; he has just killed himself a few times.  Around the time of my senior year in high school, my then girlfriend called me up crying to tell me that he had killed himself by blowing his head off with a shotgun.  I saw him a few weeks later at the mall.  I greeted him with "Hey, I heard you killed yourself." He replied with "Again?  That's the fifth time this year!  How'd I do it this time?" I told him.  "Oh, that's a new one.  Last time, I hung myself from the ceiling fan.  What's truly amazing about that one is that the ceiling fan even held, as loose as that thing is."

The last time I had seen him, he was dressed in a plaid skirt, which you might call a kilt, except he was cross-dressing.  Of course, aside from the kilt, you'd have never guessed that that's what he was doing, considering he was wearing some kind of pants underneath it, and the fact that it was plaid.  The time before that, however, he was most definitely cross-dressing.  This time, he wasn't even wearing a kilt.  He was wearing... well, it looked like a blue-collar worker's outfit, as if he were a mechanic or a painter or something, or something like what you'd see someone working on an aircraft carrier wearing.  It was mostly unzipped, revealing regular clothes underneath, further enforcing the worker's outfit theory.

Normally I just see Mike-o in passing.  It's usually either he's with a group of friends or... well, actually, it's always been he's with a group of friends.  This time he was with some people as usual.  Whether or not they were his friends or just random people he was hanging out with, I don't know.  He's the kind of guy who can walk up to a random group of people, pretend to be part of it, and no one would ever question it.  It's like he's automatically a part of whatever group he happens to be standing near.  When I approached him, I just automatically assumed whoever he was with was friends he already had.  He went on to tell me otherwise.  I envy him sometimes.

This group Mike-o was with was getting ready to go to something, possibly the dance.  Mike-o didn't want to go to whatever it was, so he just wandered around with me for a while.  We met up with Mike-o's friend, who was female, and, if I recall, cute to some degree.  Then we met up with Christian.  Mike-o's friend went to the bathroom, Mike-o ran off somewhere, and Christian and I then wandered off.  Christian wanted to talk about something con-related.  I'm sure I was listening at the time; otherwise I would've waited for the girl to come back.  I did feel bad for abandoning her, though, but it turned out the Mike-o came back and she wasn't abandoned entirely.

I checked out the dance at some point.  I didn't spend very long in there, as I don't enjoy dancing.  It might have something to do with a lack of alcohol in my veins.  I hear that helps.  Regardless, I resumed wandering aimlessly.  I met up with Mike-o again.  Apparently all he was doing was wandering around.  When I met up with him this time, he was near some people, and I thought they were all hanging out, but I'm not sure now.  They seemed to be including him on any plans they were attempting to make.  I stood around with Mike-o, and then they started including me in whatever they were doing, probably through my association with Mike-o.  We all started to wander off somewhere, then realized we were all just kind of following each other and didn't have any actual destination, so we stopped to figure out where we were going.

(New paragraphs make reading easier.)   The group decided to have a room party in some guy's room, so we all headed up to the 9th floor.  We got up there and found his roommate to be sleeping in the room, possibly drunk and grouchy.  Rather than go back downstairs, we hung around there by the elevators for about a half hour making noise.  This one girl came out of her room dressed in heavy winter gear and sat down next to the wall, waiting for the elevator.  She had a big, thick coat, furry boots, and a big scarf, and possibly pants, although I'd prefer to imagine her without them.

"This girl's ready to go outside," I commented.

"No, I'm ready to go sit in the Artist Alley at the Sheraton," she replied.  Touché.  As I mentioned before, it was rather cold over in the Sheraton.  Glasscutters for everyone!

Eventually we all headed downstairs, because we figured that there were people in nearby rooms trying to sleep, and we didn't want to leave at the request of security.  Once back on the lobby level, we wandered around a bit (well, as much as a group of about 12 people could wander on the lobby level).  Some people went off to do their own thing, the rest of us tried to figure out what we were going to do.  Met up with a couple people, one of which was Alisa-chan.  Clint and some of his associates came by.  I think he hugged me and whoever happened to be next to me.  He was quite possibly intoxicated; I didn't take the time to notice.  I pointed out that I recognized Alisa-chan from her website.  It took me a moment to be sure enough to say anything.  We all wandered across the cold part of the lobby.  Alisa-chan was shivering a bit, so I put my arm around her to try to keep her warm.  I seemed to have a chance with her, but then her friend mentioned alcohol, and I quickly lost that battle.  Alisa-chan and her alcohol-seeking friend departed.  They made no indication that they wanted me along, so I remained with the group.  C'est la vie.  Alcohol's not really my thing, anyway.

The group then split one final time.  Half the group went off to do something, and the other half went up to the 2nd floor.  I accompanied the group that headed to the 2nd floor.  By this time we were a group of six, dramatically reduced in numbers.  We found one of the couches upstairs to be vacant and made base camp around the coffee table in front of it.  Wacky hijinks ensued.

I eventually wandered off.  They were an amusing bunch, but I don't remember it all too well.  It was late.  I wandered back into the dance for a moment, but it was mostly empty by this point.  After that, I decided to finally make my retreat and go to bed.

At some point during the day, in anticipation of the moment I would vainly attempt to sleep, I had taken my bag from my car to my room.  This made things easier when I returned to retire for the night, as Christian had already taken himself to the room and then into his bed.  There were about 600 pillows on my bed.  I cleared them all off into the side area between my bed and the wall.  None of them were comfortable, and in anticipation of that inevitability, I had brought my own damn pillow.  I also bring my own sheets, because I don't like hotel sheets.  Well, it's more that I like my sheets, which are flannel.

Lying awake in bed, you start to hear things.  Sometimes, the things you hear aren't the voices in your head telling you to kill people and make sandwiches.  In this particular instance, I heard the mubidy-mumb of the room party across the hall.  Then, at some point, possibly on the edge of delirium, I heard them doing something other than making random noise.  It sounded like singing.  At first it was just one person, then more joined in.  Then, they were all singing in unison, and I could hear the words.

"I see a little silhoutto of a man.

Scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango?

Thunder bolts and lightning; very, very frightening me.

Gallileo, Gallileo,

Gallileo, Gallileo,

Gallileo Figaro - magnifico"

I'm sure you know the rest.  They certainly did.

After that, they were strangely quieter.  It wasn't just my perception.  Perhaps the song had mellowed them out.  It wasn't them keeping me awake, anyway.  It was my insom...

"ONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONK!"

Now it was Christian's snoring keeping me awake.  Or rather, it would be Christian keeping me awake if I didn't have insomni...

"ONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONK!"

Well, ins...

"ONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONK!"

WELL, INSOMNIA OR NO, I wouldn't be able to sleep while that was going on.  Every so often, it sounded like he was about to stop, but then would come back with something louder.  I have this thing called the 5-minute rule.  If you don't stop snoring within 5 minutes, you get a pillow.  I lightly arch-threw a pillow over at him, hoping it would jostle him enough to stop his snoring, but not enough to wake him up.  It worked!

"ONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONKONK!"

...for about a minute.  I threw another one.  Again, about a minute's worth of effect.  The third pillow came across the divide in a straight line.  This time, Christian not only stopped snoring, but he sat up in bed.  Then he went back down as if nothing happened.  The night proved to need another two pillows delivered in a similar fashion to allow adequate conditions for sleep.

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

The next morning, Christian got up, took a shower, and left.  I assume he got dressed at some point.  Then, that afternoon, I got up, took a shower, and left.  I assume I got dressed at some point.  Before I left the room, I restocked my arsenal.  This, of course, isn't true, but it prevents me having to write about my later return to the room solely to do this.  I did restock the arsenal at some point.

Typically, less happens on Saturdays than on Fridays at conventions, or at least from my perspective.  It's not planned that way; it just turns out that way.  Even less happens on Sunday.  Therefore, the Saturday and Sunday portions of this report together are actually smaller than Friday's portion.  This is in no way due to laziness on my part.  I just wanted you to know that so you'd stop glaring at me.

My plan was to check out the convention area of the Sheraton, since I was already in the hotel.  Unfortunately, the elevator somehow teleported me to the entrance of the Marriottt, completely bypassing the convention area of the Sheraton.  Well, as long as I was already there...

The first person I met up with was Xen.  She was dressed up as Sephiroth, I guess.  She was hanging out with this guy who had brought a keyboard (the musical variety).  Remember that hallway I was telling you about, the one disguised as a room?  That's where they were.  The keyboard was setup on a keyboard stand in the corner of the hallroom, and he had his laptop and these alien mind-control devices hooked up to them.  The alien mind-control devices (code-named "speakers") generated sound when he struck a key on the keyboard.  They looked like the should generate light, not sound... or maybe they were generating light, and the mind control made you think they weren't!  Oooooh.

The guy with the keyboard, who I will hereforth refer to as Uchuujin for lack of a real name, was skilled in the art of playing video game music.  He could probably play some other stuff, but his specialty and love was video game music.  He could change instruments at his leisure through the use of his laptop, and he could also have something running he could play along to.  He played pieces from Super Mario Bros, Final Fantasy, and other such popular games.  Everything he played he learned by ear, as he was not versed in the ways of music theory.  This certainly did not prevent him from being a vastly superior musician to me, although that doesn't take much.

A man dressed as Link (why, oh why would a grown man wear green tights?) had an ocarina with him, as per Ocarina of Time.  The real kicker was, he knew how to play it.  He dueted with Uchuujin to the Legend of Zelda theme.  It sounded quite... awkward, in a way, yet somehow just (adj form).  You know, Link didn't play an Ocarina in the original Legend of Zelda, or even the next few games, not until Ocarina of Time.  By that time, was it even Link anymore?  No matter, it was a still a chibi elf in green tights.  Why did it have to be tights?  I get the whole Robin Hood reference, but...

The Zelda duet drew some attention, then regular video game music ensued.  Xen played for a bit.  She plays piano, you know.  She's quite good, even wrote some original stuff.  She sent me a couple of songs she recorded.  They were good, although the recording had some problems (particularly the "S" problem, which can usually be resolved by using a mic filter during recording).  I wouldn't compare her to Tori Amos, but I can't really think of anything closer to her style.  I really hate to compare her to Tori Amos because the main reason I would is because it's a female playing piano and singing.  It's like comparing Ben Folds Five to Elton John.  They're just not the same.  Anyway, one of the things Xen played was the Sephiroth theme song.  Appropriate, since she was dressed as Sephiroth.  While she was playing, another Sephiroth cosplayer walked through the hallroom.  He stopped when he heard his theme and started singing.  There's not much in the way of lyrics to the song, so it's not exactly an epic feat of musicianship.  I can't sing worth a damn, though.

Xen switched back to standing around and Uchuujin took the helm once more.  While he was playing something, possibly the Super Mario Bros theme, some random Asian guy sat down on the floor nearby.  He had what looked like a distorted violin case.  What he pulled out looked like some deranged violin.  It was taller, had one string, and looked just downright freaky.  He said it's called an "eratu", but I can't find any information on the Internet about it.  I also can't find any instrument that looks like it, so I'll assume he was telling the truth and that I wrote it down correctly (the latter is more likely to be the source of the error, if there is one).  This guy played by ear, too, but he improvised, and just played along with Uchuujin.  He was around longer than I was.

While this was going on, people suddenly began to accumulate at a rather alarming rate in the hallroom.  There was a striking similarity between most of them, too.  They were dressed as Naruto characters.  It was time for the Naruto photoshoot.  Unfortunately, there were a lot of them.  I'd say somewhere around 50 people.  They didn't really fit in the hallroom, and people were having a harder and harder time going around them.  Eventually, as the mass of cloth and flesh grew, they outgrew the room to the point of realization, and charged out of the room to find refuge in a larger area.  Unfortunately, the only place large enough to contain them was the entire world, so they went outside.  I saw them out there later when I went to the Sheraton to check out the drab video game room.

Xen wandered off to find her pink-haired girl, which she still had yet to locate.  I wandered off to the Sheraton, as I mentioned a moment ago.  There wasn't a whole lot to do over there.  The artists were all depressed from the crappy location, cold air, and lack of a whole lot to do over there.  I went back to hang out with the music guys a bit longer.  They were about as fun as they were before.  I was there for a little while.  It just wasn't the same without Xen.  Also, I was hungry.

Xen had mentioned that the sushi bar in the Crystal City Underground was actually quite good, so I ventured off in search of it.  Down into the depths of the Underworld... er, Underground, the damp, dark, murky, dungeon of despair that is wasn't, passing through long corridors and past people selling evil pretzels made from pure evil and pretzel dough, I eventually came upon the mythical sushi bar.  A small band of refugees had taken refuge at the bar.  A lone man worked behind the counter, obviously tired from battling the minions of evil and making sushi all day.  He was working alone, and it was Saturday.  Normally, Saturday is a dead day in Crystal City, and as we all know, the dead only feed on the brains of the living, and not on sushi.  So normally, one man is enough for the job.  However, today there was a convention just a hop, skip, and treacherous journey away.  To say it was busy would be an understatement.  There was an empty seat at the bar.  I had to battle a zombie for it.  I think it was a zombie.  It may have been a raver.  Zombies usually have flies around them, and I don't recall any flies around the sushi bar.

The sushi, as foretold, was quite good, and I departed satiated.  I stopped by the drug store and bought a drink.  It was not a drink full of drugs, it just happened to be purchased from the drug store.  Drug stores these days are basically just large convenience stores that also sell drugs.  You can buy lots of things that aren't drugs.  Then you can buy drugs from the shady character standing around the corner outside.  After finishing the drink, I made my ascent from the mired depths.  The sunlight scorched my eyes as I departed the vast Underground.  It was truly a day of reckoning.

Upon my return to the hotel, I noticed the Dealers Room line (which I will hereafter refer to as "the Pacific") had already grown to proportions beyond massive.  Remember that concert line I was telling you about?  It was like that, only today was Saturday, which inherently has more people to begin with.  As such, if you thought the crowding was bad on Friday night...  Well, it's not that you were incorrect in your assumption; it was just more so on Saturday.  As if the halls weren't narrow enough already.

Finding a place to sit was a difficult task.  In fact, the accomplishment of this elusive deed was rarely achieved by anyone, myself included.  The Anime USA table was well-staffed all day Saturday, leaving no room for me.  Being a person who likes to sit and also to have a base of operation, the lack of ability to staff the Anime USA table left me feeling adrift in the sea of otaku.  This did not get me down, however... well, not so much that I would pout about it.  Nay, I was determined that if I were to be a ship in this vast, turbulent ocean, I would be a pirate ship.  Arrr, matey!  Shiver me timbers.  Prepare to be boarded, me beauty!  And all that yo ho ho, ye scurvey dogs!

I've sailed these seas before, and it be more wicked than a woman's scorn.  If yer not mindin' yerself, it'll sneak up on ya and ye'll wake up peg-legged.  Coasting the black market land lubbers, I be keepin' a keen eye out for anyone I know.  Then that river began running like twernt no tomorrow, but only for a short time before they were cut off like Black Jim's hand.  Money flowed like wine after a good pillage, and much booty was claimed by all.  But narry a river run dry, a new flood came roarin' in.  This be the line to the cosplay (hereafter referred to as "the Atlantic").  There be no booty to claim like before, but there be much of another kind, if you know what I mean.  Later, the cosplay let out like a ship spilling bilge rats out a cannoned hull.  Some dogs din't go nowhere, they just got right back into the line they were slave to before, biding a dance they's awaitin' (hereafter referred to as "the Coral Sea").

Somewhere along the lines, I claimed a chair as my own.  Sitting is nice.  Especially when ye been walking all day.  Ah, comfort.  The chairs weren't that comfortable, though, which be gettin' me pirate blood riled, which warn't be aidin' me hunger any better.  Then ol' Jack showed up.  He roll in like the mornin' fog, only it be afternoon, and he bear a road-going ship, food-bound.  So we sailed out to the IHOP and ate pancakes.  Pancakes calm the savage heart.

IHOP has less people in it that night than it had the previous night, but for some reason, it took four times longer to get our food.  Yarr, no tip for that food wench.  Still, the pancakes came, and all was good once more.  Jack dropped me off at the hotel afterwards.  He had some family thing to go to that evening, so he had to be back before sundown.  I don't think he made it.  I headed back to the Anime USA table, hoping for a place to sit.  I think the Pacific was still in high tide at this time, and hadn't yet withdrawn in favor of the Atlantic or the Coral Sea as aforementioned.  The Anime USA table was fully staffed.  I think about five people were back there, including at least one person I didn't know.  I seem to recall she was cute, but I definitely recall that she was taken, so there's not a whole lot of story to tell there.

Honestly, I never understood why people would wait in line for so long to get into something that you end up just walking around in, and it ultimately doesn't matter where in the room you are.  However, this seemed to be a popular task.  It seems that a great many people desire to sail the Pacific.  Me, I prefer to fly when going somewhere.  I don't take to the waters to actually travel from place to place; I just like to see who else is out sailing.

While standing around, I saw Nick and Jake heading for the pool.  Nick said that I should come along, but I told him that, seeing as it was February, I hadn't brought a bathing suit.  Nick replied, "Neither do I.  That's why my pants are rolled up." Pure genius.  A few minutes later I saw Kat and Andy heading for the pool as well.  Apparently this was some sort of group activity.  Unlike Nick, Kat and Andy actually had bathing suits.  It was almost as if they knew they would be doing this when packing for the convention.  Of course, it's been getting more and more popular to go swimming at conventions, so perhaps they simply come prepared for these things regularly.  I seem to recall having a bathing suit at previous conventions.  Either that, or she was lamenting about having not brought one; I'm not really sure which is true.  I didn't see Bryan and Amber, but since they seemed to be a part of that group as well, it seemed likely that they were in on it, too.

I was starting to feel hot from all the people heat, so I went back to the hotel room, ditched my trench coat, and put on my brown button-down shirt, which is soft, but nowhere near as warm.  This became a problem when traveling back in the sub-arctic temperatures, but I managed to avoid hypothermia somehow.  Even after arriving back at the convention hotel (yeah, I think it's safe to differentiate between them that way), despite the fervor, I was a tad bit chilly.  By the time I warmed up, it was nightfall, and the temperatures had begun falling.  Not very keen on the idea of going back and fetching my trench coat, I tried to just grin and bear it.  It was truly an unfortunate convention to not be very flirty at.  A good coat can keep you warm, but a good woman can warm you.

Geoffrey was no longer wearing his glowsticks clamped and hanging from his shirt in a painful-looking manner, but had now made large hoops out of them and was wearing the hoops in a very non-clamped manner.  Of course, the innate problem with this is that gravity still works.  Geoffrey had to keep readjusting himself... well, in relation to the glowsticks.  It was interesting to think about how he would use them at the dance.  Well, it probably was, but I subjected him to the ostrich syndrome the moment he walked away.

I'm not entirely sure when, but I saw Venus.  We wandered around for a while.  I had only seen her that one time previously on Friday, so I spent some quality time with her. Unfortunately (for me) she was not single.  This would make the third time I've seen her at a convention when she was not single.  The difference this time was that she was not with her boyfriend.  Unfortunately, she had some kind of loyalty to him, and I was to be excluded from any bed-related plans.  I guess it's nice to be able to say that that's why I didn't get any from her.  The alternatives are a bit depressing.  In the end, Venus ended up leaving me for food.  That damn food!  Always foiling my plans.

A bit later, the crowding dramatically lessened as the Atlantic hit low tide.  I wandered over to the area there were a few couches, and to my surprise I actually found one unoccupied.  I sat down to write down what little I remembered of the last couple days.  Shortly after I did, some guys came over to play poker.  They had probably been drinking, but not nearly enough to get plastered, just enough to play a variation of poker that was designed to be playable while plastered.  They were pretty cool, actually.  I had not nor have since seen that style of poker before, but it was pretty cool because it dramatically reduced the luck factor.  I can't remember it well enough to describe it, but a lot of cards were showing, and people were playing hands off the same cards.  They were playing with chips, but I didn't see any actual money exchanging hands.  They may have been just practicing or something.  It looked fun.  I didn't know the rules, and I was trying to remember things that had happened so far, so I didn't participate in the game, although I did distract myself some with conversation.

About an hour later I wandered off.  I saw Abe standing around in one of the more narrow parts of the hallway.  This particular spot was a major artery, however it had pointless furniture in it.  As long as were against the wall, we weren't blocking traffic any more than the pointless furniture was, so we just stood around for a bit.  The cosplay hadn't let out yet, but already the tides of the Coral Sea were rising.  Abe decided to get pictures of passing cosplayers, and also of some who were at sea.  The Italian painting made for an interesting backdrop.

Once the dance began and the Coral Sea flooded Main Events, Abe and I decided to wander around the dance a bit, just to check it out.  I'm never the person to actually attend an event, but I'm always curious to see how it is, so I'll often pop in for a gander, then bolt, never staying too long.  On the dance floor, Abe and I got separated, so I departed a lone wolf once more.

Randomly wandering, I met Christian downstairs.  He was in the 2nd hallroom, which was more of a hall than a room, unlike the 1st hallroom in which my previous escapades had taken place, which was more of a room than a hall, even though it functioned as a hall and not so much a room, and many confusing things came into being.  Christian was talking to someone who ran the AMV room at Anime USA the previous year.  He had some sort of complaint about the description I wrote in the program book for his panel, that he had written a perfectly good description and that only part of it got used.  Rather than stand there and argue with him about how the rest of his description didn't get used because it sucked, I changed the subject.  To what, I'm not sure, but I wasn't too particular at the time.

While we were standing around chatting, paramedics came through... twice.  The first time they wheeled out a girl who looked like she would be on the verge of collapse after climbing stairs.  I guess the dance was too much for her.  The second time, they wheeled out some equipment.  The equipment was very sickly-looking, and the doctors said that it might not survive the night.  Oh, how we were kept in suspense.  I hear the equipment is doing okay, though.  What a relief.

Christian headed off for bed, and I decided to make one final patrol before retiring for the night.  The day had just seemed too uneventful to let it end now.  As I wandered around, I noticed that the number of people present had significantly dwindled.  It was a mere shadow of a con at this point.  I guess when you have a convention like this, everybody goes to bed at a reasonable hour.  Usually at 2:00am, there's a few more people than what I was seeing.  Yeah, 2:00am.  I told you Saturday wasn't very eventful.  Even the Stepmania kids had stopped playing Stepmania in favor of watching AMVs.  Geoffrey never sleeps during these things, so it wasn't surprising he was still up.  I don't know how he does it, but he saves his parents the cost of getting him a hotel room every time.  I guess that's how he negotiates it.  Of course, he lives two blocks from the Katsucon hotel, so in this case he wasn't really saving them any money, since he could just walk home and sleep in his own damn bed if he wanted.  I didn't see anyone else, so I headed off to bed.

Christian only took two pillows that night, but he took them at full force.  I didn't feel like experimenting with different degrees of velocity.  I didn't even bother to take note if he sat up or anything.  I think he said something on the second one, but I was on the verge of actual sleep, so I may have dreamt it.

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

Got up, showered, packed.  I dumped all my stuff in my car before checking out because I don't want to wait in line with all my crap.  I never dry my hair much after showering, so the polar feel of lobby was all the more unpleasant.  Today, rather than wearing icicles, the staff was actually allowed to wear coats.  Big, giant coats.  These are coats you could get hit by a car wearing, and just stand up and laugh it off.  Well, unless it just hit your legs, then you'd be screwed, and that's really the more likely place it will hit you, so... maybe if it was a big rig you'd be okay... ironically.

It wasn't that the checkout line was long.  In fact, there were only about 7 people ahead of me.  It was that the two people who were currently at the counter had all sorts of problems.  In the IT industry, we'd label it as a PEBCAK error, but not only was there no chair and keyboard, I couldn't be sure you'd call it an "error".  Still, based on what I was listening to... You know how they say "the customer is always right?" Well, what if the customer is a fucking idiot?  I think they should abandon that policy and take a new policy of "the customer is a fucking idiot" when they get a customer who is, in fact, a fucking idiot.  That would've sped the checkout line along quite a bit.  I don't remember what the problems were, but I remember that they were stupid, and that's good enough for me to run with it.  After the fucking idiots got out of the line, it moved rather quickly.

I meant to stop by the Sheraton area of the convention again, just to see how it was again, but forgot again.  I think my forgetfulness this time may have been due in part to a couple of fucking idiots in the checkout line.  So, instead, I went straight outside, readied the dogsled, and made my way to the Marriottt.

I pretended to hand out flyers at the Anime USA table for a bit.  Again, the table soon became overcrowded, and my wanderlust overtook me once more.

There was a second concert today from Psycho le Cému, which seemed to have started relatively on time.  It sounded better today.  I guess they turned the volume down a bit to levels the speakers could manage to actually put out some music through the distortion and accompanying static.  Perhaps they figured that with fewer people, they didn't have to crank the volume as much to deafen everyone.

I saw two of the poker guys downstairs in the hallroom, just sitting around, chilling, watching the game, having a Bud.  I sat down and talked to them for a while.  One of them had bought a really cool sword, which he vainly attempted to describe to me because he wasn't allowed to take it out according to security.  From the description, it sounded more like a crest than a blade.  The two guys were waiting for their ride home to show up.  They didn't really feel like doing anything, or even wandering around, so they were just sitting there.

I headed back up to the Anime USA table for the hojillionth time.  They were already packing up.  As soon as they finished packing up, Christian headed home.  I picked up the cup of candies that was left on the table and walked around, trying to dispense love and sugar to random people.  Most people screamed and tried to set fire to me when I offered, but some graciously accepted my gifts that even I wasn't sure as to the origin of.  I gave some to the two poker guys, because I figured they didn't have anything better to do.  In truth, Sunday is typically a dead day, so wasn't really much going on.  I just sat right back down and chilled with them for a while again.

I'm not entirely sure what happened in the next two hours, but it somehow resulted in me stumbling upon Janna and Jackie.  They were with some random Asian guy.  I'm pretty sure I heard his name at some point.  They were playing with boken (Japanese words don't have a plural form; also, in Japanese, there's no way to get that 2nd K in there, so it should be spelled "boken" which is how it's pronounced anyway).  I offered them candy.  Jacky doesn't like chocolate, but I had candy canes, too.  Janna eagerly took one of the heart-shaped chocolates, but she didn't actually eat it.  Instead, she started smacking it around with the boken like a baseball.  This isn't really what you're supposed to do with a boken.  Of course, considering the nature of the event and the interests of the person handling it, I don't think the actual purpose of the boken would see the light of day.  Also, it seems that Janna sucks at baseball.  She was desperately trying to user her chocolate as a projectile against Random Asian Guy.

Random Asian Guy was not Asian in the sense that he, himself, was from Asia.  He may have been born there.  I didn't inquire as to his true origins.  However, it was quite obvious that he was raised on US soil.  Aside from his South-East Asian look, he was all American.  He's one of those people of Asian descent that, if you saw him on the street, you wouldn't doubt he spoke English just fine, and with an American accent at that.  He's got that demure, laid-back, American feel about him that only Americans have.  He's someone you'd invite over to play Street Fighter with.  Honestly, I don't know him all that well.  That's just the impression I got.

Janna and RAG started fighting for control over the boken.  There were short boken and long boken.  RAG had a solid grip on the handle, and Janna kept pulling on the shaft with both hands.  The whole thing looked rather... well...  This struggle went on for quite some time.  There was much confiscation involved.  Much grabbing, thrusting, and general-purpose heavy breathing.  It was all very exciting.

Some random family came by our way, sans father.  It was some woman and her three kids, the oldest of which was probably just under 12 years old, the youngest looked to be about 4, and the one boy was somewhere in the middle.  The two older ones were easy to ignore, however the 4-year-old decided that she had stage presence, and wouldn't let us off so easily.  She was determined to grab our attention and not let go, as if she was a stage bulldog.  I don't remember much about it, but she did perform "Pop goes the weasel" for us.  She didn't actually know the lyrics, so she made up her own.  Jacky thought she was cute.  I was just hoping she wasn't going to try climbing on me.  For some reason, kids often see me as some kind of mountain throwing down the gauntlet.  I've found that if they think I'm actually paying attention to them, they'll be satisfied with that and climb on someone else instead.  This strategy paid off, as I remained untouched by infant hands.  Ah, the glories of psychological tactics.

The janitors brought some table into the area.  We weren't exactly sure why, but there they were.  Random tables.  Jacky decided she was going to hide under one of them.  When upright, you couldn't really see under them too well, as they were pretty low and quite shady.  Whenever someone would stand by one of them, Jacky would reach out and grab them suddenly.  This gave most people quite a start.  They'd jump back going "What the fuck?!" Then they'd all look under the table and Jacky would just kind of wave at them.  She was so cute that any desire for vengeance was quickly depleted.  Now, the sans father finally showed up, and he was standing next to the table while his daughter tried to capture his attention.  Jacky untied his shoes as he stood there.  Then she grabbed his leg.  He had a double reaction, first to being grabbed, then to realizing his shoes were untied.  Of all the people she scared, he had the best expression.  Ah, 'twas classic.

We ventured into the vast underground as a party to pillage the Rite Aid and get some drinks.  RAG was the warrior, wielding his almighty bokuto of justice.  Janna has blonde hair, so she was the healer (priest, cleric, white mage, whatever).  Jacky, with her hiding under tables and sneaky untying of shoe laces, was the thief.  I had a trench coat, which is kind of similar to a robe, so that made me the mage.  Together we faced the army of doom-dealing undead doom-dealers, in the cavernous depths of the Crystal City Underground.  I think I bought a lemonade.

As we departed the darkness, leaving a path of dead corpses (with undead, you have to specify the state of the corpses), Jacky pulled a coffee-mug-watch-check and spilled her drink everywhere.  What's funny is that she wasn't even checking her watch.  She just kind of spilled her drink all over the floor for no apparent reason.  She felt really bad about it, so she went and told the hotel staff.  She didn't even lie and say someone else did it, and when someone came to clean it up, even though he didn't ask, Jacky told him that she was the one who spilled it everywhere.  It was kind of funny, though.  She goes through the process of reporting it to the hotel, they call someone else, those people say they're sending a guy, and eventually a guy comes down with some paper towels.  How anti-climatic.

I'm not sure what became of RAG, but he disappeared at some point.  Jacky and Janna had to wait for their ride.  I don't know whose parent was picking them up, but it was one of their parents.  They're not sisters, but they both have parents, and they were riding together, so it all works out.  So they go outside to wait, then decide it's too cold and come back inside.  Now, at this point in time, the revolving door has been opened up for general public usage.  Se we all go through the meat grinder, then come back through.  Then, Janna thinks she sees the car, so we all go back outside, realize that wasn't it, then retreat from the cold and a pack of hungry wolves back through the meat grinder into the warm safety of the hotel.  Then Jacky just started going round and round in the revolving door for a while.  I may have sneezed at some point.  Yes, it was Sunday.

Eventually their ride arrived and they departed.  It was a tearful departure, with loving embraces all around.  Well, maybe not from Janna, because she doesn't actually like me, she just tolerates me.  I tried being flirty with her before... Let's just say it didn't go so well.  She didn't pull a knife on me or anything, but... yeah.  Of course, it wasn't tearful between Jacky and Janna, because they were leaving together, and not actually parting ways from each other until later in the day.  Then they'd probably just see each other the next day at school, anyway, so even that couldn't have been too dramatic.  Ah, you could feel the love.  I saw them off and went back inside, a lone wolf once more.

There was a cute girl inside with a box at her feet, obviously waiting for her ride.  Now, I'm not the type to approach a stranger, but this seemed like an opportunity, and I didn't want to kick myself later for having passed it up.  The moment I opened dialogue with her, her ride arrived.  Drats!  Foiled again!  So far, I've had very little success in approaching complete strangers.  I guess the idea does seem doomed to failure just from concept.  But, hey, it works for other people.  She didn't shriek in terror or fling holy water at me, so that was encouraging.  She did leave, though.  There really wasn't enough time to actually have even begun a conversation, so I hadn't even gotten far enough where she might be interested in ever seeing me again.  I'm not sexy enough to get women interested in me on looks alone.  At least, I hope not, because if I am, that would mean there's something else keeping the women at bay.  Hmm, I may need to take up drinking tonight.

I wandered a bit more, but people were scarce at this point.  All convention events had already come to a close, and the people who remained were all packing up or randomly wandering like me.  I think Geoffrey was still around, because he didn't need to pack up or anything, seeing as he lived two blocks from the hotel.  Hell, he may have gone home, had lunch, played some games, painted the dog, checked his email, and come back.  I probably would have, just because I could.  I saw Happy Chris wandering around, but he was on staff, so he actually had a purpose.  I chatted with him for a few minutes, then wandered off.  Alas, the convention was over, so I had nothing to do but concede the fact and go home.  As much as I miss the luxuries of home, it's never a joyous occasion going there from a convention.  Well, maybe if you're Geoffrey and live 2 blocks away, and can go home every night like it ain't no thing.  Otherwise, it's kind of sad.  It's not the return home, it's the concession that, yes, the convention is over.  Truly, I was more sad that it wasn't a more eventful convention than I was about it being over.  But, such is the way of things.  C'est la vie, and all that jazz.

Well, that's all for this convention report.  I hope you didn't gouge your eyes out in agony, or terror, or agonizing terror, or just because you were bored.  Look forward to my next convention report: Bikers who wear mini-skirts and funny hats 2005.  That one shouldn't take so long to write, as I'm sure it'll be a breeze.  Until next time... um... see you next time!

(Cue closing music.)