WEEKEND UPDATE (before it again becomes the weekend)
ALRIGHT, I am finally going to update about this past weekend. I am not going to do full details of everything, just the parts of interest. Deal?
Thursday: Picked up Rob and was followed by Matt and Seamus all the way to Nick's in New Jersey. I was not driving the Jeep, but rather my sister's VW Jetta. I thought the Jetta would be better because A.) It was faster, and B.) it had air conditioning. On the drive between Nick's and Hsien's, we stopped at rest area and schooled the arcade arm-wrestling machine. I should have brought my video camera inside.
Friday: We got to Hsien's apartment just outside of Baltimore at about 1:30 AM. I stayed up all night playing games with the cool folk while wusses like Seamus got sleep. We left at about 8 AM to go to the Baltimore Convention Center. Parking was a problem, so I parked in a garage that I thought was near to our hotel. (HAH!) The line for Otakon registration was about 2 hours, but having about 15 friends to wait with made it quite amusing and worthwhile.
We finally got our badges around 11 and had to wait around another hour or so for the hotel to call Nick and say our rooms were ready. We finally got into one room, and it was so unbelieveably small. It had a big bed, a table, some chairs, a closet, a TV in cabinet, and a bathroom. Little floor space at all, definitely not Beach Bash size, better yet, not "sleep 12 people within" size. This was problematic. Also, it did not have an adjoining room as Nick was promised about 6 months ago.
To make a long story short, Brad and I walked around Baltimore for almost an hour trying to not be shady about exchanging a fistfull of $20 bills into $1,275.00 in biggest bills possible. When we got back, we gave Nick the money and he spent about an hour and a half downstairs yelling at people. (See his version of the situation HERE). Anyway, he called up to us and said calmly, "Pack up everything, we are moving." We did, and he delivered us to our new room on the 26th floor. I was the last to enter, so everyone had ruined it for me, but we were in the Presidential F'n Suite. It was bigger than my entire apartment AND it had two floors. Yes, there was a spiral staircase in the corner. As Nick put it, everyone shit their pants for like, a hour. Luckily I brought an extra pair with me. We also had the adjoining room. In total: Three bathrooms, three closets, four TVs with A/V inputs, two huge beds, couches, chairs, tables, and a fricking eight-seat dinner table(!) all for the price of the two miniscule rooms we were originally given. Fricking DAMN it was amazing.
This palace, if it was my apartment, I would be the happiest college kid in all of New York. It was THE PERFECT place for a party, and so it was.
Saturday: I slept from 2 AM until 1:15PM in a corner under a hotel bath towel. It was so cold in that room and I left my blanket at Hsien's apartment, so I froze a lot.
Matt and I walked around Baltimore to find a good Chinese restaurant for lunch. Baltimore is so weird and cool. It's a city of mostly African-Americans who are all awesome. I can't describe what I mean, and it's nothing racist, but that is the only was I can describe the people of downtown Baltimore. After walking and backtracking a few times, we found a HUGE place that I thought was a shopping mall. It turns out, it's a gigantic building filled with food stands. There was any type of food imaginable in this place the size of most shopping malls. It was any food court I have ever been to X78, that's how sick it was. We got soda for $0.50 a can (and no deposit!), and I got some amazing chinese food. A whole meal for $3.50. Everyone else missed out and probably had Taco Bell and Burger King again.
Saturday Night: CORBO BEACH BASH, finally came to fruition. I would say, throughout the night there were probably 75 people total who came in. Probably about 50 were in the rooms at any given time. Simply fricking amazing....I can't put it into words any more than that.
I spent most of the time trying to tell Seamus not to be such a puss and to go talk to the girl he thought was cute. Just know this: Seamus is a bitch.
At about 4 AM, most people were gone and I decided to take out the video camera and film what became a really funny video of drunk people.
Sunday: (Titled, "102 Miles on a Donut") On the drive home, in the middle of five lanes on the Garden State Parkway, my front-left tire blew out. This startled half-asleep Rob, and awoke fully-sleeping Seamus. What is weird, was that it was not like the movies. There was a big "pop," then grinding sounds. That was it. I did not lose control like in the movies. It might be because we had so much weight in the back of the car (including a 25 inch TV) that the right front wheel alone was able to control my 65 mile an hour car. Otherwise, it could have been disasterous.
We changed the tire on the side of the road, and lo and behold...it has about 1/3 of the air it should have. WHEE! I pulled ahead to exit 135 and parked in a business office parking lot. We walked about three blocks and found an Exxon station. Whew. I got air and gas, and began the journey. Unfortunately, this was not a full-sized spare, so I was limited to 50 MPH or less; if I didn't listen, the tire would probably overheat and also explode. Over two hours later, our 102 mile trip back to Poughkeepsie was completed...it was 11:15 PM.
Thursday: Picked up Rob and was followed by Matt and Seamus all the way to Nick's in New Jersey. I was not driving the Jeep, but rather my sister's VW Jetta. I thought the Jetta would be better because A.) It was faster, and B.) it had air conditioning. On the drive between Nick's and Hsien's, we stopped at rest area and schooled the arcade arm-wrestling machine. I should have brought my video camera inside.
Friday: We got to Hsien's apartment just outside of Baltimore at about 1:30 AM. I stayed up all night playing games with the cool folk while wusses like Seamus got sleep. We left at about 8 AM to go to the Baltimore Convention Center. Parking was a problem, so I parked in a garage that I thought was near to our hotel. (HAH!) The line for Otakon registration was about 2 hours, but having about 15 friends to wait with made it quite amusing and worthwhile.
We finally got our badges around 11 and had to wait around another hour or so for the hotel to call Nick and say our rooms were ready. We finally got into one room, and it was so unbelieveably small. It had a big bed, a table, some chairs, a closet, a TV in cabinet, and a bathroom. Little floor space at all, definitely not Beach Bash size, better yet, not "sleep 12 people within" size. This was problematic. Also, it did not have an adjoining room as Nick was promised about 6 months ago.
To make a long story short, Brad and I walked around Baltimore for almost an hour trying to not be shady about exchanging a fistfull of $20 bills into $1,275.00 in biggest bills possible. When we got back, we gave Nick the money and he spent about an hour and a half downstairs yelling at people. (See his version of the situation HERE). Anyway, he called up to us and said calmly, "Pack up everything, we are moving." We did, and he delivered us to our new room on the 26th floor. I was the last to enter, so everyone had ruined it for me, but we were in the Presidential F'n Suite. It was bigger than my entire apartment AND it had two floors. Yes, there was a spiral staircase in the corner. As Nick put it, everyone shit their pants for like, a hour. Luckily I brought an extra pair with me. We also had the adjoining room. In total: Three bathrooms, three closets, four TVs with A/V inputs, two huge beds, couches, chairs, tables, and a fricking eight-seat dinner table(!) all for the price of the two miniscule rooms we were originally given. Fricking DAMN it was amazing.
This palace, if it was my apartment, I would be the happiest college kid in all of New York. It was THE PERFECT place for a party, and so it was.
Saturday: I slept from 2 AM until 1:15PM in a corner under a hotel bath towel. It was so cold in that room and I left my blanket at Hsien's apartment, so I froze a lot.
Matt and I walked around Baltimore to find a good Chinese restaurant for lunch. Baltimore is so weird and cool. It's a city of mostly African-Americans who are all awesome. I can't describe what I mean, and it's nothing racist, but that is the only was I can describe the people of downtown Baltimore. After walking and backtracking a few times, we found a HUGE place that I thought was a shopping mall. It turns out, it's a gigantic building filled with food stands. There was any type of food imaginable in this place the size of most shopping malls. It was any food court I have ever been to X78, that's how sick it was. We got soda for $0.50 a can (and no deposit!), and I got some amazing chinese food. A whole meal for $3.50. Everyone else missed out and probably had Taco Bell and Burger King again.
Saturday Night: CORBO BEACH BASH, finally came to fruition. I would say, throughout the night there were probably 75 people total who came in. Probably about 50 were in the rooms at any given time. Simply fricking amazing....I can't put it into words any more than that.
I spent most of the time trying to tell Seamus not to be such a puss and to go talk to the girl he thought was cute. Just know this: Seamus is a bitch.
At about 4 AM, most people were gone and I decided to take out the video camera and film what became a really funny video of drunk people.
Sunday: (Titled, "102 Miles on a Donut") On the drive home, in the middle of five lanes on the Garden State Parkway, my front-left tire blew out. This startled half-asleep Rob, and awoke fully-sleeping Seamus. What is weird, was that it was not like the movies. There was a big "pop," then grinding sounds. That was it. I did not lose control like in the movies. It might be because we had so much weight in the back of the car (including a 25 inch TV) that the right front wheel alone was able to control my 65 mile an hour car. Otherwise, it could have been disasterous.
We changed the tire on the side of the road, and lo and behold...it has about 1/3 of the air it should have. WHEE! I pulled ahead to exit 135 and parked in a business office parking lot. We walked about three blocks and found an Exxon station. Whew. I got air and gas, and began the journey. Unfortunately, this was not a full-sized spare, so I was limited to 50 MPH or less; if I didn't listen, the tire would probably overheat and also explode. Over two hours later, our 102 mile trip back to Poughkeepsie was completed...it was 11:15 PM.