AZ REPORT!!!!
It was all a fabulous whirlwind trip, and I'm still coasting on the con-high. :-)
Wednesday: quick morning at work then Oskar arrives and off to the airport we go.
Airport newstand had best headline ever!!
Flight was uneventful and we get into Greensboro and over to Mom's house. SLEEEEEP. Obtain Hello Kitty camera which is defaced for stealth… Josh and I have been in a Hello Kitty war where we try to out-obnoxious each other with HK merchandise (this is why I have an HK toaster). This time, I had a non-descript disposable Kodak camera that inserts Hello Kitty into every shot it takes, unbeknownst to Josh…
Thursday: Went to the awesome used bookstore of awesomeness, picking up a compilation of Byron, Keats and Shelly as well as a Maupassant collection and a DS game involving teenage zombies and brain eating thingys. B MOVIE LOVE that plays like Earthworm Jim! <3 <3 Then off to the comic store where I found a boatload of Groo I was missing, a P Craig Russell artbook (!!!), League of Extraordinary Gentleman collected hardcover, and a ton of Asterix for George. Mom does photography work, so we went off to do a photoshoot during which mom fell (most graceful fall I'd ever seen) requiring a trip to the Urgent Care... still in costume... she gets checked out and we hand out ice from our giant bag o' ice to the various injuries coming in the door while we waited - people were surprisingly ok taking ice from Allen Walker.... She had a bad sprain, no breaks thankfully.
YAY, Urgent Care! It's not a proper photoshoot until someone gets hurt!!!
On the way home, pick up take-away Thai food (again, still in costume...) including some uber tastey crispy duck. Find out I may end up with mom's DSLR (!!!!!) (Nikon d-40, not the uber megapixel but still fly) since she wants to upgrade to a d-90 or d-5000. Spent the rest of the night with video games and vodka cranberry/pomegranites.
Friday: Quick trip to Tina and Josh's and then set out for AZ! Get to hotel fine, then head over to the con. Not much going on, running into people I've met over the last 5 AZs - and the warm happy atmosphere... it was like walking in and realizing you've just instantly made 1000 new friends to go with your 1000 old friends. People coming up and continuing conversations from last year, catching up <3
Kikkoman and I go back a coupla years!! <3
HOMEMADE GODCHILD!! The tailoring was IMMACULATE.
Patapon!
This Fai's costume is REVERSIBLE! Blue and White version on the opposite. o.O FRIGGIN' GENIUS..
The con center was huge huge HUGE, and AZ rented the whole building. All 5 floors. No other events at the center. But they turned off the escalators!! D:( I know it was for safety but it was a damned if you do damned if you don't thing - either get something stuck int he moving steps or fall because you can't see/walk/whatever on the immobile stairs. One of the stopped escalators went directly from floor 3 to 5 - it was murder. I DON"T WANT TO SEE STAIRS AGAIN. Back to the room to raid the grocery store stockpile we brought with us, do some gaming (Chrononauts was cool as crap once I got the hang of it, Mythos has an awesome concept but WTF rules so we made up our own), wait for the others to arrive, and to partake of the Malibu. The Malibu's gone within the hour, everyone else arrives, and we're outside the hotel drinking until 3am.
This photo taken with patented Bacardi-Vision!
There was a trip in search of food at some point, Josh making friends with some wierd kid as usual (he's a magnet for the wierd ones, like the kid that licks tailpipes o.O ) that was a great distraction for us taking advantage of Josh (he still doesn't realize he never pocketed the cash we bet on him....). I missed Cheerwine like WOAH and gladly sucked down Cheerwine and Bacardi for the night.
That wierd thing in the background behind Tina and Connie? That's Josh's new BFF Ray He was telling us he was in the yakuza and an ex-con XD BTW, Connie is a lap whore..
Saturday: Up a few hours after going to bed but too excited to care about the lack of sleep. Hit the con, walking around and meeting up with more and more people. EVERYONE IS SO AMAZINGLY NICE!!!! Signed up for the Chess match but didn't get in. Hit up the FF shoot and then tried to get to the DGM shoot which was the same time - they waited as long as the could for me but the photographer had to bounce, so I just get adopted for a couple hours by the DGM people and wander the con, game and dealer's room.
Reminders everywhere of my friends that couldn't come this year (U NEED TO GO NEXT YEAR!!)
The game room was fricking amazing, giant screens and arcade machines everywhere, an awesome mix of old, new, variety, and domestic/Japanese games. The Dealer's room - good size and so awesome to not see the same crap over and over again like in Florida with the same vendors over and over. I wish I could buy figures!! Had to stop a few years ago because no space, but they had some great stuff, more variety and more old school <3 Off to dinner at the Marriott, dodging people dressed to the nines for an Indian wedding. The saris were so beautiful!!!! I kinda wished they had elephants though :D
Dinner was amazing, had an incredible seafood risotto with the giantest most perfectly seared scallops I've ever seen and the airiest tiramisu I've ever had. Stuffed, back up to the room to chill. MST3K'd Con Air and Nicholas Cage's fierce eyebrows and magical abilities that t'aintnonevermind until we decided he was Jeebus feuled by POONs though Chuck Norris would still kick his ass while watching the hispanic Slapchop commercial with its blind-smashing glory.
Again with the Bacardi-Vision...
Pedobear hand to pierce the heavens!
Friggin Poons!!
3 layers of pleather is no excuse to not be in the pool.
Down to the pool, at AZ it's in the pool costumes and all, which made me decide that since the King of all Cosmos is retired and I can't set it on fire in a boat like the Vikings, he's gonna go into the pool sometime in the near future. IT MUST HAPPEN. Back to the room, not drunk enough to stomach Tom Cruise movie, we disperse, some to the rave with its army of emergency vehicles bsuy outside and Tina and Josh breaking up a bar fight somewhere. The elevator got stuck too.
Sunday: Pre-judging! No sitting behind a table 5 feet away, these judges got up and swooped down on you, flipping, poking, checking, questionning, touching. It was the way craftsmanship judging should be IN SPADES. On stage. In front of an audience. While you have a mike in hand so eveyone can hear how you made it. Josh's Pedobear got its very own public disclaimer from Animazement.
Thanks Tina for the pic!
Some beautiful entries, to the point where I thought I shouldn't have been there. It was great to see and hear and talk shop though. People I ran into for 2.5 seconds on Friday were coming up and asking if I was having a great time and chatting like we've known each other for years, and people that just saw a pic from coscom were coming up and chatting like old friends too. Went to the Taiko concert - it was epic last year, this year was a bit more chill but still awesome. Running into people I had talked to or knew EVERYWHERE. I can't emphasize enough how NICE EVRYONE WAS!!! Picked up some awesome stuff in the Dealer's room (a coupla shirts for me and George, some small figures, a plush for the exact game I happen to be playing, and a horror book).
Closing ceremonies, and ALL of us that entered from our group won something!!!! Josh didn't get official recognition for the first time in a couple of years, but he was definitely an unoffical fan favourite as Pedo, Shawn took Judge's for Auron, Danielle took Third for Rikku, and I took Second for Oracle.
A sad goodbye to the con, and it was time to go so we could hit the road for the drive back to G'boro and Mom's. They still have the angry whopper in NC!! Also got to munch Mallow Cups, candy I miss lots that's hard to find in Florida. I also managed to fall UP some stairs - on the last day, on the very very last flight! - I fell up the stairs, landed at the top, and did a barrell roll because I landed on my knee and elbow. Both knees now have horrible bruises. :-/ Like mother, like daughter, right?
Monday: At Tina and Josh's where their kids reinvent the iPhone and we play Cutthroat Hello Kitty Uno...
eyePhone, /Derp.
(YES, the gun is fake!)
Our version of the Friendship card was so much better than the one in the rules. Back home, lunch, see an old family friend, then off to the airport. It's North Carolina - where they put a mock front porch with rocking chairs IN the airport to satisfy all your redneck needs!
Screening also had rocking chairs parked in the area. Had to wear the Oracle fur hat of doom thru the airport - TSA wasn't nearly as amused as we were and a lot of people thought we were German (?????) Russian or Cossack or Mongolian maybe... but German???? A suitcase also fell out of the trunk on the less smashed-up knee, so I now have a matching pair and an awesome limp.
Look! Chocobos CAN fly!
What he was staring at.....
Made it back to Orlando, realised I never made it to Biff Burger TT.TT Oskar and I go through my figures and comics so I can unload some stuff. He found all the 5-Star Stories he needed in G'boro, so I gave him my Red Empress figure since he'd appreciate it more, and it's too fragile to have around the Twitch-monster. I miss my stuff! I have to keep all my comics and figures in storage, getting them out made me realise how much I missed it all TT.TT Every other sentence from Oskar was "OMG I can't believe you have.....!!!" which didn't help.... I have a lot of stuff as original issues that's usually just found in collected volumes now and now I want reread ALL of it.... with the magical time I'm going to pull out of my ass with which to do so :-)
All in All, Hands down, the BEST WEEKEND ALL YEAR, approached only by Burn in Hell weekend back in January. I missed my friends soooo much, and you all need to go next year!!! I didn't go to as many panels/events as I would have liked, but the chill time with my friends made it all entirely worth it. AZ 2010 (#7 for me! WOOT!!!!) can't get here soon enough!
The epic mustache competition was this weekend too - I wanna go some day!!
Now, it's all Metro prep from here, RAWR!!!!! I can’t believe it’s so soon!! I’m ditching my hotel room because it’s just me anyways, and rooming with a roomful of awesome friends. I can’t wait!!
Going to FSC because I made a promise to do so…. But it’s been the biggest headache ever trying to sort out lodging and a ride. I think it’s worked out though? I hope it’s worth the trouble.
Cons have been a lot of hassle this year, and they shouldn’t be.
In other news, still having trouble getting a replacement drive to fit my laptop so it can be reformatted and reinstalled…. I think I’m ready to give up and just get a new one…. And it’s NOT going to be another Dell. Screw that noise.
No news for G on the job front, though Fox is now eliminating their Sports department. (?!?)
Thinking about looking into lasix for my eyes if anything does pan out and he gets employed again. Our insurance covers a huge chunk of it.
My car is dying some more >.< May have to get a new one before the job search is over, and pray it doesn’t cause a financial black hole for us.