Not-So-Timely Con Report
*ahem*
So, AUSA was, um, last month. I have read other people's reports, I just have been too lazy to write my own. I'm at work and I really am too busy to write one. . . so here I go!
Thursday:
Hm. Thursday kinda sucked. It was raining like hell in the morning. Joe picked me up at my house, since my car was still being repaired. We loaded my stuff (including 140 pounds of Mah Jongg stuff)in the rain. We drove to York in the rain. Joe and I went to Denny's for breakfast, and the fun immediately began there. . . several stupid things were said. The two best were Joe trying to say "let's whip out the back way", which became "let's wipe out the backgroud". . . and "Steve, NASA should study you. They wouldn't learn a thing, but they'd pee themselves laughing." After Denny's, we had to stop by the Booze Store to get Joe his wine. Ha ha, it is hilarious to hear Joe running through the rain. . . "aah! AAAAAH! SHIT! BUTT! FUCK! OOO YA. . .! SON OF. . . BLEAARGH!" etc, etc. . . Rain is acid to poor Joe! He got his boxes of wine, I grabbed a bottle of Sake for Chris, what a nice guy I am. By the time we arrived at Chris's's's place, it was raining even harder than before. Chris was waiting for his clothes to dry, so he waited in his nice warm dry house, while Joe and I shuttled things from Joe's car to Chris's car. The moment I stepped out of Joe's car, I soaked my left foot. . . the street Chris lives on was a river. The water was running four inches deep the whole width of the street. Assaulted from above and below, I succumbed and accepted my soggyness. Near tradegy happened when we had the last of our stuff in Chris's trunk. . . I wanted to save time with the next load, so I just mostly shut the trunk. Joe and I went inside while Chris packed up. We came out with his stuff about 10 minutes later, and the trunk was wide open! DAMNED WIND! My luggage and Mah Jongg stuff was at the back and got a good soaking. Waaaahh. Ha ha, we dropped one of Chris's blankets in the street/river, serves him right. I don't know why, but I'm sure he does. Finally we were on our way, whee. Nothing really notable happened on the way down. It rained like hell, standing water on the road caused a few delays. . . and Chris and I had a wonderful arguement about the best way to keep the windshield defogged. I'm sure we would have been punching each other in the face over the matter, if he didn't have to drive. About 4/5 of the way there, the rain dropped off, we drove out from under the storm system, and the sky became crystal clear. Ah, glorious sunshine! For some reason, the last 8 miles to the hotel went at 10mph. . . we spent 40 minutes creeping along. It took us 4 hours to get to the hotel, when it normally takes about 90 minutes. Plus, I just about got us lost trying to find the place. . . But we got there, dammit! The room was fantastic. . . fireplace, full kitchen, pull-out sofa bed, awesome shower. . . I made pancakes, and they were fucking awesome! Chris decided that he wanted "real" food (more real than pancakes? Scoff, I say!), so he and Joe went out for foodstuffs. I watched TV and waited for my shoes and socks and feet to dry. While they were gone, Lisa M arrived, yay Lisa! I made her pancakes (it was a theme for the weekend. . . if you were in our room, you got pancakes), and soon the other guys got back. We talked and watched TV. . . Willy Wonka was on, the Gene Wilder version, and we decided we needed to see the Johnny Depp version sometime during the weekend. Drinking had been happening -- if Joe and wine are in the same room, soon they will occupy the same space -- and as the only sober and/or awake person in the room, I was conscripted for a midnight McDonalds run. That's the best time to go, there's no traffic! Lisa was kind enough to get me some cinnamon pastry-type things, they were super-yummy. We all crashed when we got back to the room. Ha ha, Joe kept calling out "aaaah, stop toucing me!" to Chris, when Chris was actually 4 feet away. Thus endeth Thursday!
Friday:
Hm. . . the rest of the con was mostly a blur. Oh, notable happenings in the wee hours -- I heard Joe get up around 5:30am and go to the fridge, most likely for a glass of wine (. . . I love waking up drunk!. . .), and then there was a huge fart. Blame was assigned to Chris. Upon awakening, there were pancakes for breakfast. Yay! Then some of us helped Lisa haul her stuff to her table and get her display all set up. My, what an impressive edifice it was! Plus, she was sitting right in front of the elevator doors, so you saw her table first thing. After that, I went to the one and only show I saw all convention - Fearless, Jet Li's last martial arts movie. And holy hell was it fantastic. I desperately need the DVD when it is released. After that, I spent time at Lisa's table, walked back and forth to the room a couple of times. . . at some point, Kelly N showed up. She also was at the table most of the time. I brought a Mah Jongg set, we played several games. At one point, she mentioned that the scoring rules were kinda like Cribbage scoring, and I freaked out! I love cribbage, but no one else knows how to play! I went to the dealer's room just to get a pack of cards (got some Howl's Moving Castle cards, good stuff) so we could play later that night. Around 7-ish, Lisa and Kelly left the table so they could go to the room and watch Avatar bend some air. Lots of stuff sold while they were gone, but it was the merchandise selling itself. . . I suck at salesmanship. When the girls got back, Kelly and I made a food run. Eventually we broke down Lisa's table and stashed everything in her car, and went back to the room. Oh, and several times during the day I stopped in to see what the Patti and Anna were doing. They were staffing, mostly. Back at the room, Chris and Joe told me all about their pizza adventure. . . but it resulted in them finally getting pizza, so all was good. Everyone ate stuff, Kelly and I played Cribbage (Yay! she won, but it was very close) and we watched the Johnny Depp version of Willy Wonka. I like the Gene Wilder version more, but there were definitely some good moments in the Depp version. After lights out, we had our traditional Retarded Talk In The Dark. . . at one point, Joe said something about minerals, and Kelly just about died laughing. We were up talking until 4am, did I mention we are retarded?
Saturday:
Got up, had cold pizza for breakfast, walked over and helped Lisa set up, walked back to the room, walked back to the con, walked back to the room, grabbed my 140 pounds of Mah Jongg stuff, hauled it back to Lisa's table, and then just kinda stayed there. My panel was at 1pm. I dislike the fact that they have panels in the "open tables" area. . . people were coming up and sitting down to eat and leave trash everywhere, and there wasn't as much room as I would have liked for Mah Jongg. But despite that, the panel was a big success! About 60 people stopped by in the 4 hours of the panel, and I gave out all 40 copies of my handout. There were three groups of hard-core players that stayed until around 7pm. . . and one group was there until around 10pm! I wandered downstairs, saw Lisa, also saw Patti and Anna, they had a need for caffeine. . . so I decided to walk to the 7-11. OK, Chris described it thusly: "just go to the main road. . . turn right at the corner. . .it's right there!" Now, the 7-11 was actually a mile and a half up the road. Not a big deal in a car, but quite a haul on foot. I got back in time to help Lisa break down her table. After that, I waited around for a while, and made my way to the "What Not To Say To A Female Otaku" panel. Patti and Anna and a bunch of other ladies hosted it. Joe showed up drunk, and Anna invited him to be part of the panelists. It turned into more of a "con horror story" panel, but it was fun. After the panel, around 2am!, I went back to the room. Joe wanted to find a party, but I refused to babysit him. He actually made it back to the room about 20 minutes after I did. He was a walking distillery, judging from his breath. He had some really funny drunk-talk going on (Life?... BLOOD?... that's right, just ignore me...you call me your friend, then you LAUGH at me!...etc)he finally shut up and passed out. We ALL passed out.
Sunday:
OK, sunday was kinda blurry. Let's see. . . Chris and Joe both got up to go watch stuff. Lisa got up and went to set up her table. I stayed behind and got everything in the room packed up. I was just finishing when Chris and Joe came back. We loaded up his car, did the final room check, and were all done, before 10am. We rock! We were gonna meet up at Lisa's car over at the con to do some swapping of stuff. . . there were traffic problems, and we weren't in the same place at the same time, and I was getting worried because I wanted to see Nen Daiko at noon. . . when Chris finally did show up, I was kind of a dick, I feel bad about that. . . but we did our thing, stashed our stuff, and I got to see Nen Daiko, Yay! Daiko drumming really excites me, I was in moose-tackling mode. After that, we wandered the dealer's room one last time. . . and a certain wonderful angelic person named Patti found me Lum figures! Yay! After that, goodbye glompage to Patti and Anna occurred, Goodbye to Lisa and Chris+ (Lisa's friend Chris) did too, and we finally hit the road. The drive back was just fantastic compared to the first trip -- didn't even take 90 minutes, no slow traffic, no problems at all. Dropped off Chris, Joe dropped me off. . . and that was it.
Whew! So, there's AUSA for 2006. I only took 7 pictures the entire time, I still need to upload the one of Patti and Anna in costume (Lina and Sylphiel), I'll do that soon, I promise. Next con: TekkoShoCon, in Pittsburgh, in April. I'm looking forward to that one, it was great the last two years, I'm sure it will be again this year.
Next up. . . a post about the holidays, I suppose. Low-key Christmas this year, and that's not a bad thing.
TTFN.
So, AUSA was, um, last month. I have read other people's reports, I just have been too lazy to write my own. I'm at work and I really am too busy to write one. . . so here I go!
Thursday:
Hm. Thursday kinda sucked. It was raining like hell in the morning. Joe picked me up at my house, since my car was still being repaired. We loaded my stuff (including 140 pounds of Mah Jongg stuff)in the rain. We drove to York in the rain. Joe and I went to Denny's for breakfast, and the fun immediately began there. . . several stupid things were said. The two best were Joe trying to say "let's whip out the back way", which became "let's wipe out the backgroud". . . and "Steve, NASA should study you. They wouldn't learn a thing, but they'd pee themselves laughing." After Denny's, we had to stop by the Booze Store to get Joe his wine. Ha ha, it is hilarious to hear Joe running through the rain. . . "aah! AAAAAH! SHIT! BUTT! FUCK! OOO YA. . .! SON OF. . . BLEAARGH!" etc, etc. . . Rain is acid to poor Joe! He got his boxes of wine, I grabbed a bottle of Sake for Chris, what a nice guy I am. By the time we arrived at Chris's's's place, it was raining even harder than before. Chris was waiting for his clothes to dry, so he waited in his nice warm dry house, while Joe and I shuttled things from Joe's car to Chris's car. The moment I stepped out of Joe's car, I soaked my left foot. . . the street Chris lives on was a river. The water was running four inches deep the whole width of the street. Assaulted from above and below, I succumbed and accepted my soggyness. Near tradegy happened when we had the last of our stuff in Chris's trunk. . . I wanted to save time with the next load, so I just mostly shut the trunk. Joe and I went inside while Chris packed up. We came out with his stuff about 10 minutes later, and the trunk was wide open! DAMNED WIND! My luggage and Mah Jongg stuff was at the back and got a good soaking. Waaaahh. Ha ha, we dropped one of Chris's blankets in the street/river, serves him right. I don't know why, but I'm sure he does. Finally we were on our way, whee. Nothing really notable happened on the way down. It rained like hell, standing water on the road caused a few delays. . . and Chris and I had a wonderful arguement about the best way to keep the windshield defogged. I'm sure we would have been punching each other in the face over the matter, if he didn't have to drive. About 4/5 of the way there, the rain dropped off, we drove out from under the storm system, and the sky became crystal clear. Ah, glorious sunshine! For some reason, the last 8 miles to the hotel went at 10mph. . . we spent 40 minutes creeping along. It took us 4 hours to get to the hotel, when it normally takes about 90 minutes. Plus, I just about got us lost trying to find the place. . . But we got there, dammit! The room was fantastic. . . fireplace, full kitchen, pull-out sofa bed, awesome shower. . . I made pancakes, and they were fucking awesome! Chris decided that he wanted "real" food (more real than pancakes? Scoff, I say!), so he and Joe went out for foodstuffs. I watched TV and waited for my shoes and socks and feet to dry. While they were gone, Lisa M arrived, yay Lisa! I made her pancakes (it was a theme for the weekend. . . if you were in our room, you got pancakes), and soon the other guys got back. We talked and watched TV. . . Willy Wonka was on, the Gene Wilder version, and we decided we needed to see the Johnny Depp version sometime during the weekend. Drinking had been happening -- if Joe and wine are in the same room, soon they will occupy the same space -- and as the only sober and/or awake person in the room, I was conscripted for a midnight McDonalds run. That's the best time to go, there's no traffic! Lisa was kind enough to get me some cinnamon pastry-type things, they were super-yummy. We all crashed when we got back to the room. Ha ha, Joe kept calling out "aaaah, stop toucing me!" to Chris, when Chris was actually 4 feet away. Thus endeth Thursday!
Friday:
Hm. . . the rest of the con was mostly a blur. Oh, notable happenings in the wee hours -- I heard Joe get up around 5:30am and go to the fridge, most likely for a glass of wine (. . . I love waking up drunk!. . .), and then there was a huge fart. Blame was assigned to Chris. Upon awakening, there were pancakes for breakfast. Yay! Then some of us helped Lisa haul her stuff to her table and get her display all set up. My, what an impressive edifice it was! Plus, she was sitting right in front of the elevator doors, so you saw her table first thing. After that, I went to the one and only show I saw all convention - Fearless, Jet Li's last martial arts movie. And holy hell was it fantastic. I desperately need the DVD when it is released. After that, I spent time at Lisa's table, walked back and forth to the room a couple of times. . . at some point, Kelly N showed up. She also was at the table most of the time. I brought a Mah Jongg set, we played several games. At one point, she mentioned that the scoring rules were kinda like Cribbage scoring, and I freaked out! I love cribbage, but no one else knows how to play! I went to the dealer's room just to get a pack of cards (got some Howl's Moving Castle cards, good stuff) so we could play later that night. Around 7-ish, Lisa and Kelly left the table so they could go to the room and watch Avatar bend some air. Lots of stuff sold while they were gone, but it was the merchandise selling itself. . . I suck at salesmanship. When the girls got back, Kelly and I made a food run. Eventually we broke down Lisa's table and stashed everything in her car, and went back to the room. Oh, and several times during the day I stopped in to see what the Patti and Anna were doing. They were staffing, mostly. Back at the room, Chris and Joe told me all about their pizza adventure. . . but it resulted in them finally getting pizza, so all was good. Everyone ate stuff, Kelly and I played Cribbage (Yay! she won, but it was very close) and we watched the Johnny Depp version of Willy Wonka. I like the Gene Wilder version more, but there were definitely some good moments in the Depp version. After lights out, we had our traditional Retarded Talk In The Dark. . . at one point, Joe said something about minerals, and Kelly just about died laughing. We were up talking until 4am, did I mention we are retarded?
Saturday:
Got up, had cold pizza for breakfast, walked over and helped Lisa set up, walked back to the room, walked back to the con, walked back to the room, grabbed my 140 pounds of Mah Jongg stuff, hauled it back to Lisa's table, and then just kinda stayed there. My panel was at 1pm. I dislike the fact that they have panels in the "open tables" area. . . people were coming up and sitting down to eat and leave trash everywhere, and there wasn't as much room as I would have liked for Mah Jongg. But despite that, the panel was a big success! About 60 people stopped by in the 4 hours of the panel, and I gave out all 40 copies of my handout. There were three groups of hard-core players that stayed until around 7pm. . . and one group was there until around 10pm! I wandered downstairs, saw Lisa, also saw Patti and Anna, they had a need for caffeine. . . so I decided to walk to the 7-11. OK, Chris described it thusly: "just go to the main road. . . turn right at the corner. . .it's right there!" Now, the 7-11 was actually a mile and a half up the road. Not a big deal in a car, but quite a haul on foot. I got back in time to help Lisa break down her table. After that, I waited around for a while, and made my way to the "What Not To Say To A Female Otaku" panel. Patti and Anna and a bunch of other ladies hosted it. Joe showed up drunk, and Anna invited him to be part of the panelists. It turned into more of a "con horror story" panel, but it was fun. After the panel, around 2am!, I went back to the room. Joe wanted to find a party, but I refused to babysit him. He actually made it back to the room about 20 minutes after I did. He was a walking distillery, judging from his breath. He had some really funny drunk-talk going on (Life?... BLOOD?... that's right, just ignore me...you call me your friend, then you LAUGH at me!...etc)he finally shut up and passed out. We ALL passed out.
Sunday:
OK, sunday was kinda blurry. Let's see. . . Chris and Joe both got up to go watch stuff. Lisa got up and went to set up her table. I stayed behind and got everything in the room packed up. I was just finishing when Chris and Joe came back. We loaded up his car, did the final room check, and were all done, before 10am. We rock! We were gonna meet up at Lisa's car over at the con to do some swapping of stuff. . . there were traffic problems, and we weren't in the same place at the same time, and I was getting worried because I wanted to see Nen Daiko at noon. . . when Chris finally did show up, I was kind of a dick, I feel bad about that. . . but we did our thing, stashed our stuff, and I got to see Nen Daiko, Yay! Daiko drumming really excites me, I was in moose-tackling mode. After that, we wandered the dealer's room one last time. . . and a certain wonderful angelic person named Patti found me Lum figures! Yay! After that, goodbye glompage to Patti and Anna occurred, Goodbye to Lisa and Chris+ (Lisa's friend Chris) did too, and we finally hit the road. The drive back was just fantastic compared to the first trip -- didn't even take 90 minutes, no slow traffic, no problems at all. Dropped off Chris, Joe dropped me off. . . and that was it.
Whew! So, there's AUSA for 2006. I only took 7 pictures the entire time, I still need to upload the one of Patti and Anna in costume (Lina and Sylphiel), I'll do that soon, I promise. Next con: TekkoShoCon, in Pittsburgh, in April. I'm looking forward to that one, it was great the last two years, I'm sure it will be again this year.
Next up. . . a post about the holidays, I suppose. Low-key Christmas this year, and that's not a bad thing.
TTFN.
posted by Luminazuma @ 1:57 PM
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