June 8, 2010

761 words 4 mins read

FanimeCon 2010 Wrap up: Part 5 of 5 – John's View

As Jon pointed out in part 1, I am doing my own post about my Fanime experience.

We arrived via our respective motorcycles and pulled into the Hilton parking garage around 2:30 PM and thankfully were able to checkin early. After sherpaing our bags to the room, we changed and headed down to check out the con. Before we had even gotten to the Dealers Hall, we heard a shrill cry break the relative silence, we both stopped and looked toward the sound, just as it glomped me at full speed and ran off. We both looked at each other and busted out laughing. Jon was disappointed that he didn’t get a picture. I was more surprised than anything by the small woman with a backpack who ran full tilt into me, glomped, and then ran off again. A fine way to start the con I decided.

Checking out the Dealers Hall and Artists Alley was fun and it was nice to be somewhere that was meant to handle a multitude of people between the aisles, rather than the sardine can that is standard at every gun show I’ve ever attended. Jon assured me that it would get much more packed the following day, and it did, but it was never as bad as a gun show in Reno. To be fair though, there are rarely any cosplayers at a gun show (the occasional “Wild West” getup is about it).

Over the course of the weekend I saw 3 other Vashes. I talked to one of the other Vashes and he said he had gotten his costume from Hot Topic a few years back which I thought was pretty darn nifty; he (like myself) was Vash all weekend. The last Vash I saw (and only saw him one day) was this guy who had a pretty incredible leather costume.

I also saw 2 Wolfwoods (both with crosses), and managed to get a couple pictures with one. He had made his cross and it was indeed functional (and heavy!), in that it popped out as a huge gun. He pointed out something that I had been sort of noticing all weekend: half the props you see people walking around violate the con policies. The policies are mostly there so that they can get rid of the people/props who are creating problems, and if they say your prop isn’t allowed, then you just take it back to your room and leave it there. Next time, I’ll bring the gun that was beautifully painted for me by my good friend, Ashley (who will eventually get her costume shop open to the public so everyone else can partake in her excellent work).

The con graciously provided WiFi at the con, and you would generally see a small crowd near the router throughout the day. It was a bit disappointing to not have it in the room, and neither Jon nor I were going to pay $6 per day for it when we could easily get it elsewhere for free (me downstairs, he via his Nexus One). On the topic of our room, it was nice, and provided a good respite for when we needed to decompress (read: take the costume off for a few minutes) in the middle of the day (I know this is an anime related post, but please stop thinking yaoi thoughts — and if you don’t know what that is, for the sake of your job, don’t google it at work). At one point, Jon seriously managed to lose his shoes in the room (complete with swearing), much to my own amusement.

One of my favorite activities at Fanime was the Swap Meet on Friday. It was a blast going through the gaming hall and seeing what everyone had to offer, as Jon pointed out, we made a couple circuits, much fun had by all. I was disappointed that they only do it on Thursday and Friday night; it would have been great if they also did it Saturday night or perhaps Saturday night instead of Thursday night.

As Jon pointed out, staying for Monday was not worth it. There weren’t any deals that I noticed and I had already bought what I wanted the previous night. Next time, I would definitely leave Sunday. I also think that bringing a car rather than motorcycle would have been a better idea, as Jon and I were both getting kind of crazy with our packing strategies as we left the hotel.

Last but not least, here is a picture of me in costume.

fanime fanime2010 fanimecon fanimecon2010 glomp hilton vash the stampede wolfwood

FanimeCon 2010 Wrap up: Part 2 of 5 – Saturday

June 2, 2010

== Saturday == Today’s entry starts almost exactly where yesterdays left off. Ya see, the 12th floor (where we were) is apparently party central, and Friday night (and by default, Saturday morning) is party time. So guess where the party was? Directly outside of our door. While the hotel might have great sound baffling between rooms, not so much between you and the hallway. So up until about 3am, every so often a group would (generally) be coming from the, or going to the, elevator (directly outside our door). There were loud and obnoxious and woke me up repeatedly. Generally though, they’d be gone in less than 5 minutes, so it wasn’t worth trying to call security. Not exactly my favorite way of starting a day (or ending it, depending on how you feel). The day itself actually started… oh hell… I can’t say a specific time, but eventually I was conscious, out of bed, and caffeine infused. Coke Zero & Doughnut holes, while not healthy, is a great way to take me from grumpy to hyper in nothing flat. After that it was off to breakfast at a place called Peggy Sues. They are your typical American restaurant in the fact that they serve enough food (per person) to feed at least 3 normal people. As a side bonus, their breakfasts were much cheaper than the $15 hotel buffet John enjoyed (he actually slept thanks to the joys of earbuds).

FanimeCon 2010 Wrap up: Part 4 of 5 – Monday

June 4, 2010

== Monday == Monday started fairly early as there was packing to be done. We decided that we wanted to get out and on the road, with any luck, by 11ish since we had 250 miles to go for the day. We managed to make it fairly close to our expected departure, but not without a few bumps along the way. The first was our day starting at something like 6am as an entire troop of con-goers (I’d assume) were passing by our door making, as per usual, as much noise as they could possibly muster. I don’t know what kinda shit they were on, but it must have been good. Me at 6am after a con-weekend… is not a happy camper. Disregarding that one incident the night’s sleep wasn’t too interrupted. After we got all packed and basically ready to get out the door, we headed downstairs to the con for one last round in the Dealers Hall. We had a bit of time to burn so we checked out the other areas to see if there was any excitement going on. Granted it was before 10am, but there was still next to nothing going on. Out front of the convention center was very quite, just a few people sitting around (getting a tan?). As it turned out, a majority of the people awake were waiting for the dealers hall to open, all nicely queued up. We joined them since we had nothing better to do. The idea on going to the dealers hall is to get stuff on the cheap. At least… that was the theory because I heard many people talk about getting “good deals” and “cheap stuff”. Except… that isn’t how it worked out.

FanimeCon 2010 Wrap up: Part 3 of 5 – Sunday

June 3, 2010

== Sunday == With the bonus of Saturday night being “less exciting” and a dash of meds to help me sleep, Sunday began at a somewhat reasonable hour. Only somewhat because John decided that if I was to get breakfast, I had to be up before 9 AM (Editor’s Note — Jon asked to be woken up for breakfast). Anything before 10 is a sin against Kami-sama, but for food… I’ll make an exception. It became clear to me fairly early in the day that we were both “off our game”. In my case I dismissed it as a sleep med induced hangover, but as it turns out, that wasn’t the case.