Massive catchup GET, part 1: Otakon 2007!

[mandolin]

Okay, I actually got home late Monday night, but Tuesday was a catchup day at home and Wednesday was a catchup day at work (and the evening was taken up by a very nice surprise IRL). I have about two weeks' worth of rambling to catch up on, and I'm cheating. These catchup posts will be public so I can link them to non-LJ users who I owe updates to, because I'm not going to want to rewrite them several times.

I really wanted to do my Otakon write up in "Movies in Fifteen Minutes" style, but that would ironically take too long and over a week later my memory of the con is no longer as fresh as it once was. (And yes, I owe more of my G2007 writeup - thank GOD I privately posted an outline or I'd be in trouble.) So instead, here's the more traditional rundown - the first part, anyway, because I can't be concise. Ever.


Thursday night pre-reg pickup was largely uneventful; I met up with jennies, indigoangelcat and ebonyleopard to touch base and car-switch so Jen could leave her car temporarily at my place while they got their stuff to the hotel. debrika made it down later on, having to drive straight from work in Rockville, but after the insane wait she had last year on Friday she didn't want a repeat of that. We got on the Light Rail, got to the convention center, and had our badges in five minutes flat. Got to love Thursday night pickup.

Since Deb had to work Friday morning, I went into town on my own around 9, with a bunch of G2008 flyers and Carmine, whose presence I justified as an advertising gimmick to get people interested rather than just pushing flyers on people. I also wanted to make it to the first Steve Blum signing with my G2003 shirt, since I knew he was at G2006 with the rest of the last-minute W.I.T.C.H. voice cast who attended. I got there around 9:30, and the first thing I did was go up to the Information Desk to verify that the schedule this year was NOT horribly inaccurate. It wasn't, but none of the staff could clarify exactly where you had to go to get tickets to autograph signings - either the signing line or the person's Q&A, they weren't sure.

Despite having the chance to peruse the schedule beforehand, I didn't see anything that looked too interesting - while the schedule was a LOT more accurate than last year, they still omitted a great deal of descriptions and I ran out of time to look up the ones they forgot to include summaries of. (There were also some incredibly last-second changes that I wasn't able to catch.) So I spent the first hour or so wandering around with Carmine in tow, and actually handed out a few flyers and took photos of cosplayers. I tried to limit my photos this year to characters who I could personally identify or who I figured one of my friends could identify. When I was in the Starbucks line, chatting with someone who was a professional costumer but who knew very little about anime, someone actually asked for a pic of Carmine. Which I'm sure inflated his ego even more. ;)

I ran into the Artists' Alley trio around 10:30, and was surprised that I got there earlier than they did (then again, I didn't have to tote suitcases full of art supplies and merchandise, and I slept in my own bed) and accompanied them to the elevators to the Alley. I didn't go down there because I didn't yet have an excuse to be down there before it officially opened at 2. I also had to make a run to the Dealers' Room before the Vic and Steve Show at 2 (aka Vic Mignogna and Steve Blum's Q&A session), because I wanted to buy Advent Children anyway and figured I might as well have Steve sign it. But since I didn't think it wise to go right when the Dealers' Room opened at noon, I went out on a lunch run for Jen and Tasha over to the Bank of America building, which I swear had a Burger King last year. But with the BK gone, Tasha had to settle for Blimpie's. I got myself some pasta, got Tasha's sub, and this time I did go down to the Artists' Alley - I hitched a ride on the elevator with an assistant, now that I had the excuse of bringing artists food.

I didn't abuse the trip down there, though, just sat and talked with Jen and Tasha for a while, and Jen had made Carmine his own badge and had it as a sample. So I used some ribbon and one of the badge holders to secure it on him as well before making a quick circuit of the Alley to see what was there before going back upstairs and making my way to the dreaded Dealers' Room line. It was long, but fast-moving, and it didn't take me long to find a decently-priced copy of Advent Children and corner an excellent Edgeworth cosplayer for a photo. I got back upstairs and went to the room where the Vic and Steve Q&A was, figuring I could sit in on the preceding panel for half an hour. But since that panel was cancelled, there were just some early comers. I sat down in the third row (yes, that's important) and waited patiently for the show to start.

When it did start, they announced that the earliest comers got the "skip the line" autograph tickets for Vic and Steve's autograph signings - the people in the first TWO rows, natch. They did not mention if any further autograph tickets would be given out, so I stuck around.

It was pretty obvious WHY they called it "The Vic and Steve Show" - God, Vic Mignogna and Steve Blum are hilarious. I totally forgot about my irritation at the autograph ticket thing watching the two of them ham it up and indulge the fans. I'm sure that the entire panel is up on YouTube at this point. I didn't manage to get my AIR TV question or my W.I.T.C.H. question answered, which was just as well since the former bordered on spoilerific (but I was curious if Vic was as confused by the subplot as I was or if he was given additional info about it beforehand). I do remember Vic saying that if Ouran High School Host Club was licensed that he would LOVE to do Tamaki. I'd love it too.

But as it neared 3 pm, and Steve's signing was at 3:30, I started to get antsy - no one had addressed the question of where to get the second half of the autograph tickets! The panel was starting to run long, and while I really wanted to stick around and catch Vic's song (which is probably on YouTube by now as well), I reluctantly got up a bit before 3 pm and headed off to Autographs 2. Deb called me around that time to let me know she was done with work, packed and en route. I told her to grab her Cowboy Bebop DVD for Steve's signing.

Which was smart; there was already a line when I got there. When they passed out the last 25 tickets, I lucked out. I was the 23rd person in line. Five minutes later and I'd have been SOL. 3:30 rolled around and there was no sign of the 25 people who had "jump the line" priority tickets. Now you'd think that they'd get the privilege WHEN THEY SHOWED UP, right? No. The rest of us had to WAIT for the 25 "jump the line" ticket people to actually get there, despite the fact that Steve was there and they were set up. The first 25 people didn't show until maybe 3:45. ...Yeah.

So we waited. And waited. And waited. The guy in front of me was a con volunteer, his shift started at 4, but 4 rolled around and we were still sitting there. He refused to budge since he had to work all day Saturday and it was his only chance to get his CD signed. I didn't really blame him. Deb made it to the convention center while I was still in line and brought me the DVD jacket of Cowboy Bebop to get signed for Doug. I told her she could go and check some other things out if she wanted; we were in line for over two hours.

When we got in the room, I stopped being irritated. WHY was the wait so long? Because Steve took the time to chat with every single person, sign anything handed to him (including a stuffed Ein dog, which was pretty impressive) and take pictures with everyone who asked. I couldn't be annoyed at that, really. He signed both DVDs, gave Carmine even more attention, and took a photo with me. And yes, he remembered G2006. :)

After that was over, Deb and I got a bite to eat - I was starving - checked in at the Alley, and decided to go camp out in Video 2 because Fate/Stay Night looked interesting. We watched that and got through an episode of Darker than Black before deciding to get in line for the AMV contest. Contrary to last year, they had space for EVERYONE, the line was controlled properly and moved. The AMV contest was all right, although the comedy entries this year were a little weak - a couple of the Upbeat ones just didn't make any SENSE, the Cromartie High School comedy entry might have hit if I knew the anime at all, and the Doki Doki vid pretty much turned me off of chocolate pudding for a while. The Honey and Clover video made me want to find the series again, if it hasn't been licensed yet. And Sesshomaru Champloo is right up there with Tainted Donuts. Beautiful.

We headed back to my place not long after that, having decided to hit the rave on Saturday and spend the night in the hotel room with Jen, Tasha and Shawn then. After Deb got set up, I decided to crash out as early as possible so I could get up, shower and get my costume together and get to the convention center before 10 am. This time around, I couldn't get away with being a slob....

Comments

[kevenn.livejournal.com]

Aw, lucky boy, that Carmine, with all the attention he got. :)

[jennies.livejournal.com]

There was a girl wandering around with a gryphon hatched from the same aerie that brought Carmine into the world. She got her gryph a badge, too. (It started with "A" and was the name of a star, that's all I can remember about it. You know me and names....but there's a picture of it on Tasha's camera, so at least I'll find out eventually. ^_^;) I think she'd seen you & Carmine out and about and liked the idea.

Need to get AMVs from you, if you can find any of them.

Anyways. Thanks for all your help (and lunch runs) at the con!

Hope your beach vacation was fun and devoid of sunburns. ^_^