Errr...one month anniversary of the con? 8D *tomato'd* SORRY! Dx
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Part 2 - Saturday
Because the world is mystical, the residents of room 1019 all awoke around 8am Saturday morning. Well, the Canadian ninja was gone, along with the My Little Pony couple - all three had booths in the artist's alley.
So I snagged a bagel from our food stash, then my Caribou Coffee espresso-coffee drink, and journeyed five feet out the door to stare off the balcony at the lobby below. For ten minutes, I was in the zen mode of bliss - coffee, a bagel, and pajamas. Ahh...
Text messages from Waffles announced when she would be arriving at the hotel, so after finishing my breakfast and getting dressed into my costume, I waited on the balcony again, observing the con goers below. After a hiccup start (going to the wrong Hyatt, for instance), she arrived, and from my perch ten stories up, I guided her to the room. Fun times.
Let's get past all that - we're a duo in costume and ready to go - we hit the floor to the dealer's room. It was about 10am at this point, and after meeting up with Marissa, we caroused the floor, gaggling at the goods available for purchase.
And that's the way it was - going up and down and left and right around the booths, seeing what they had and what we'd be interested in purchasing. I chose the method of investigating first, then going on a flood-buying spree later.
Fun fact: Shopping around does help, particularly at cons. Marissa bought a Wind Waker Link plushie from a booth for $22, but many others wanted $30 for it.
Waffles and I were dressed up as Mia and Maya Fey from the Phoenix Wright games. Perhaps the underlings at our school know nothing outside of SquareEnix, but at cons, it's a whole different game. Many times, we were asked for photos, which is always fun. What's also funny is when people at the booths recognize where you're from and either talk to you about it, try to sell you things that they have, or incorporate you into their speeches.
While all three happened to us, my personal favorite moment came from the third one. At one point, we walked past a yaoi booth, where they had a barker (again, the most obnoxious thing about the dealer's room was this man) trying to hackle people into buying things. As we strolled past, the guy spotted us and said, "Sorry girls, we sold out of our Phoenix Wright stuff yesterday!"
To which I shouted back, "Not my Phoenie!" very loudly. Well, I had to, since we were well past the booth by that point...
Early on in our adventure, we ran into schultzie. Of course, I was so zoned in on the booths that I didn't notice until he went "Hey Katana!" Even then I didn't respond until Waffles brought my attention into focus. Ahahahaha. We talked and caught up before parting ways and hoping the best for theOtaku meet-up.
Only at a con can you hug a guy older and way taller than you and not be thought of as jailbait. Wait...
More shopping and more carousing. I can't really remember the order of when I bought things due to me being there the whole weekend rather than one day. Regardless, at 12:30, Waffles reminded me of the time and of theOtaku meet-up. I was about to kick into gear when I got distracted by two things - a Phoenix and Edgeworth cosplaying duo.
One of my goals of the con was to glomp a Phoenix (partly due to me being a PhoenixiMaya shipper...I know, I know...). After I asked (because I'm polite and wouldn't want some rabid, hyperactive girl to attack me), I did, and Waffles got a picture of me in mid-process. Then the four of us did an "OBJECTION!" stance together, and it was great.
After that minor distraction, I dashed off to the Hyatt, up to the tenth floor, snagged some snacks I had purchased, and took off my wig. It had done its job, and was also molting off my head, so I perched it on the one free perch in the room - the hairdryer. Fire hazard much? (It wasn't plugged in, though.)
Armed with my messenger bag, Target-brand Cheese-Its, and Oreo Cakesters, I made my way to the food place. It was only 12:45, so I had time to wait and not freak out.
What did freak me out, though, was having my back turned and bellpickle using her sneaking skills on me to freak me out.
So bellpickle became the first person to arrive to the meet-up. Out of the core group of people I know/watch on theO, she's the one I've known the longest for reasons that are now lost to me. And since I've already met her once, I shifted into my standard mode of behavior, and made my jabs at her and her constant DBSK posts. It was all in good fun, bell, and I didn't mean to offend you if I did. It's the cost of knowing me, sorry.
Waffles and Marissa made a joint-appearance before schultzie arrived. And, well...that was kinda sorta almost it. The five of us snacked on my food items while bell began assembling figurines she had bought in the dealer's room. The first one, L, took perch on the cheese squares. After a while of schultzie story-telling and bell no-talking (which is also standard), Waffles decided to take Marissa for another spin in the dealer's room.
Most of the time spent was me and schultzie whining and complaining about how nobody was showing up for the meet-up. Then we attempted to make ourselves feel better by saying it was because we didn't have the draw of the podcast boys or SomeGuy or free swag.
About a half-hour into the meet-up, a very normal-looking man came into the entrance of the hotel and looked around a little. I perked to attention when he came towards us (which was what I did whenever anybody came towards us). He stood a safe distance away, clutching his bag carefully before going, "Uh, excuse me, but I'm looking for people from this website, theOta-"
The syllable had barely escaped his mouth when I leapt on him and went, "THAT'S US HELLO!" And it turned out that this normal-looking man was Fateriskhead.
That was theOtaku meet-up at ACen - the four of us. Truth be told, I enjoyed it. We just talked and talked and talked and talked for what seemed like...well, a very long time. At one point, the food place decided to open up their other sliding-glass-door-thing to make more room for customers, so we were booted out of the pathway and ended up outside. Because he's crafty, schultzie took the chair he had been sitting on with him.
And we talked talked talked some more. Still fun! It was an enjoyable time to just sit and shoot the breeze with the group. However, I had to make one last run to the dealer's room. By this time, it was...man, it was rather late in the day. I wanted to say it was around 4 or 5pm. See, Waffles had bought a t-shirt of Phoenix Wright that said, 'iObject', and she instructed me to buy the accompanying one - Edgeworth. I bid farewell to the failure of theOtaku meet-up - a failure, but still fun.
I was lucky to make it to the dealer's room when I did, because they only had one of the t-shirts left. I checked the tag - large. Alright, that's fine by me. I later found it to be a child's large, which fits a little bit awkwardly but still fine. Whatever!
I bummed around the dealer's room for a while, took some pictures and had pictures taken of me, and caroused the artist's alley. I made a pitstop to Ranefea, who was confided to her booth while we had the meet-up. I felt kinda bad for telling her the going-ons while she couldn't come, so I bought a Sora bookmark from her. I describe it was my "NO WAI" bookmark. It comes in handy for crack books and such.
Also on my carousing, I caught a glimpse of HALCALI. They were finishing up their rounds of autographs, and while I was very tempted to get in line, I chose not to because I had absolutey nothing for them to sign. Sigh. I did take two pictures of them though!
I scuttled out before the closing of the dealer's room at six and decided that I needed to grab something to eat. Cons are quite amazing and amusing in that aspect - the aspect of being able to eat very little because they all charge you an arm for a drink and your legs for something to eat. For that day, all I had eaten was my bagel, my coffee drink, some Oreo Cakesters, and the cheese squares.
But the Hyatt was awesome and had this small, buffet-esque thing of pizza, assemble-your-own-burger, and...something or another. I chose the burger - 1/2 pound of meat, baby! - and piled on the lettuce and tomatoes. I snagged a Diet Coke - glass bottle, fancy fancy - and paid about $8 for the two. That was an amazing bargain, and it was...oh, it was so good.
I wandered the hotel for a little bit, checking out the gaming rooms and just generally lazing about. I decided to head back to the hotel room and chill, wherein I found the Canadian ninja working on some commissions she had gotten. Whoever had been in the room before us had left "House" on, so...that's what we watched. I bonded with her a little bit, but we mainly watched television. Also, more soda.
During this time, I had been receving updates from Sangome about her graduation and her travels. She got out a lot faster than I thought she would! Every hour or so, we'd message each other to see what we were doing. The fact that I would be meeting one of my online IDKBFFs was slowly becoming more and more real.
After showering, texting my California friend, and more TV, I decided to clonk out. It was around 1am by this point, and despite the fact that the rave was going on, I really didn't care (dancing's not my thing).
Saturday had been great. But Sunday was bound to be awesome.
End Day 2 at 2:00am
