Otakon and NY reporting in!
So now that I've returned home and have had a chance to get some sleep... it is time for the report!
warning: I have memory like swiss cheese and if I left someone out or confused you, my bad. Just poke me and lemme know.
warning: LONG.
DAY ONE: Thursday, July 29
Packed since the night before, my sis and I raced home so that we could go to Boston and Baltimore, respectively. Moments of panic ensued when my iPod mini was fritzing earlier in the day, but it came alive after some panicked postings and searching online. Reset is your friend. (score one!) I have to say, I really like those auto check-in kiosks. NO LINE! (score two!) Also, was thinking I'd need to check-in my luggage, since it was a heavy load, carrying the tOFU books, but apparently, I did not! (score three!)
Caught the shuttle for a cheapy $11 or something and texted lorelai my arrival. Attempted to connect with TAC-room. Stoopid me was on the wrong floor. Luckily, no one was in those room. I met with success one floor up and was greeted with giant Hyatt suite and gazillions of people.
Now I will cheat and steal edit from gwee's Otakon post...
So people loitering the room were: lorelai, dormando, nemissa, naruto_nerd, kyubikitsy, yoseshiro, junosama, isamu1916, pmbq, nunuu, gwee, phr00tie, et, shax...
Considering that I know some of these people by their REALTM names, I have no idea who's who in LJ-land. ladyfox and mentalguy came later.
Chatted with lorelai off and on all evening about our perpetual obsession, FFXI. Somewhere in there, an attempt to order a pizza went awry, a party of 8 udon colourists dormando, went to pick up industry tickets, (with junosama totally being in charge.. heeehehe... juno: "we're missing some people here..." otakon: "yes mam!"), and a second pizza attempt.
Luckily, the second attempt worked, but half of us had already slept and the rest of us had minimally staved off hunger with the Clodhoppers and maple cookies I had brought down for group consumption. et seemed to have been gnawing on ice to supplement the sugar-laden feast.
Since gwee was sharing bed-space with shax, I got to steal gwee's airbed. Sweet bliss of sleep came quickly, 'cause it was near 3am when we finally all crashed, I think.
DAY TWO: Friday, July 30
Woke up and met everyone at the Bistro 660 in the hotel to have a nice breakfast. Smuggled some corn pops out. Didn't see them for the rest of the con. Assumed SOMEONE STOLE MY CORNPOPS!! bad cornpop theif! While breakfasting, pirochan arrived! So cool to finally meet our distant friends of so long!
WOW
Congregated in the alley where pmbq, my tablemate for the con was already there. junosama was going to share our space too, but there was more space over by the TAC crew so she ditched us to go there. Did moderate sales and broke early to go to Paulo's for dinner with everyone where WOW (first shown to me at breakfast), was taught to all. Variations of LOL, OMG, and WOOT were played out in the course of the evening.
Scooted on back to the hotel where we talked into the night and I took the floor this time 'round, as gwee had been chased out of bed with Shax the night before. Due to innatention and innebreation, Tom got his thumbnail painted red by me, after I had finished with ladyfox's manicure in preparation for her costume the next day.
Tom is PURDY.
DAY THREE: Saturday, July 31
Alley opened at 9am, (so I think..). Woke up at at 10:15 and Lore and I booted on out of the room, leaving the rest to fend for themselves.
Did some sales and then took off for lunch with mochiman and talked about being a colourist and working in comics and the longterm ups and downs of the industry. Good to see friends, and I think he will join us next year in the Otakon alley insanity.
After I returned, I sold off all my tOFU's and began taking additional commissions here and there. NO TOFU TO BRING HOME GOOD. very happy.
Did a quickie tour of the Dealer's room near closing and said hello to Steven Bennet of Iron Cat and Robert DeJesus. Wish I could have spent more time saying hi, but cons are perpetually busy.
Ran back to alley and finished some more commissions and we made our way to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner... which didn't happen, since it was a 1.5 - 2hr wait for a table of 20. oh well. I did get to paint the rest of Tom's fingers on the one hand to match his thumb before dinner tho!
PURDY!!
Went to the food court instead to eat and half of us brought it back to the hotel to eat, while another half stayed in the court. Gathered back together after the food and some stayed to chat, others when to events for the evening.
Was going to go to the dance, but a persistent headache wouldn't leave and I thought it better to not be bouncing around. Had a nice chat and then dozed off while others played FF Crystal Chronicles.
DAY FOUR: Sunday, August 1
Sessi! Warcraft! ON TRAIN!!!
Woke up reasonably early today and got to packing stuffs. I left the room earlier to hit the alley and get those pesky commissions done. I discovered during the course of the day that I had forgotten a couple of them. D'OH. However, the people were forgiving and I got them done pretty quick.
Met up with a Linkshell mate from FFXI who kindly got us Dealer's Room swag for us.
After the alley closed, we packed up and dropped some things off at the hotel and foraged for food at the food court again. This time, we simply ate at the Uno's instead of doing a 2.5 hr wait AT THREE PM for the Cheesecake factory, (whhhy so busy...!!). We then had et doing some food art with her leftovers. very odd...
...waited for 15 minutes to buy $6 US cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory, but it was super nummy. Shared it with everyone and then hung out for a few in the Hyatt before hopping two Taxi's to the Amtrak.
hobo picnic!
Sadly, we discovered that pmbq wasn't actually taking the same train we were. :(
The train ride was super great for me, as I discovered that shax had the items eaglemania and I needed to complete the Reserve Mission in FFTA!! SO EXCITING!
Also, dormando was logging online in the train due to his uber cool combo of laptop and cellphone w/ internet acceess. SO G33KY COOL.
Made it into NY and within 15 minutes saw a cockroach skitter across the walk way. Did a three-wave entry to the Wellington, so as to avoid raising the hotel staff's suspicions of why there may be ten people in one hotel room.
DAY FIVE: Monday, August 2
Today, we hit up the Natural History Museum. Very cool and got some great shots. Wish that we had had time to sketch more, but alas, closing time came faster than expected. After a brief stop at the hotel, eaglemania, ying, et, Shax, and I made up Team B and went to Toys R Us to seek out some fun things.
Bought some candies and Cranium for Lore and Dorm.
That evening, some people opted for Udon/Ramen, and the rest, (comprising of Shax, Lorelai, dormando, ying and I), went to a fancy Greek restaurant next to the hotel called Molyvos. Lore and I shared Lamb and grilled octopus. mmmmmm... so good.
Returned to try and get online to make meagre postings and cry about how I couldn't log on to FFXI since I didn't have my long complicated code memorized.
DAY SIX: Tuesday, August 3
Lormspace
Got up eaaaaaaaarly to get Lore moved into her new digs on Wall st. Breakfasted at Niko Niko, riiiight across from the new Lormspace and it was nummy. Yay udon noodles! There was lots of waiting, but by the time 2pm rolled around, gwee had joined us and we had unpacked a fair amount of stuff.
mmmm... sugar... (@serendipity's)
We taxied it up to Serendipity and met up with Team B (a.k.a. the late risers), as well as hooking up with pmbq. There we had lunch, (good), and desserts, (EXCELLENT). We defeated the desserts of Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, a Chocolate Blackout Cake, Crème de la Crème Cheesecake and Strawberries and Cream. More food porn ensued.
After, we toddled on back to the Wellington to rest up before seeing Rent on Broadway. The evening outing was attended by Ying, Lore, Dorm, Gwee and I. Apprehensive about seeing Spice Girl Mel C as Mimi that evening, we were well pleased by the end. Second half really pulled the play together, and Lore and I spent the rest of the evening humming it up.
Got back to the hotel to find that et was the Hero of Darkness EXTREEEEEME and after our five-star dining of McDonald's, proceeded to load up Crystal Chronicles to continue the evening.
DAY SEVEN: Wednesday, August 4
After a late start, ate at Niko Niko again and then went to Kinokuniya. Passed by Rockefeller square and took some shots. Didn't have much time at Kinokuniya's and sadly, no copic refills available. T_T I did buy a fine liner white out pen that was dysfunctional.
After seeing Shax off to his bus ride to the airport, we made our way to SoHo, but got detoured to Chinatown. Bought some a really pretty hair clip and necklace from So Good Jewelry. SPARKLY!!!
OMG!
Passed by a VS but didn't go in and finally entered the Apple store, (that I kept calling the iMac or iPod store all weekend), and met up with Dorm and Tom (plus GF). Bought a pair of collapsible earphones and passed on the ugly skins for my mini. Need to look online for better ones.
Had dinner at a Mexican diner place and et engaged in some leftover plate art again. Tom tried to compete but failed.
Made plans with Tom for the next day and trundled back to Lormspace. While Lorm was moved in, there were still boxes everywhere and very little floor space for us to hobo in. Using the Book of Answers, (boxes were numbered randomly, so this was the key), et took charge and we all began cleaning up. By the time she got to the floors, our feet were grimy from the move. Ordering us to the bathroom to wash our feet, Lore tried to push her way next in line, but gwee was adamant and commanded, "RESPECT THE LINE!"
Neither graceful nor stylish was I, killing myself laughing as I'm trying to wash my feet. But who cared? We were all giggling away.
So, things unpacked, floors clean, boxes smashed... some people wanted to shower... uh oh. we didn't buy the shower curtain we had put down on the list earlier that day.
So instead, we cobbled together a shower curtain out of white plastic garbage bags, weighted down by... pennies. et wanted to decorate it, and so wrote "RESPECT THE LINE" to commemorate it.
SO GHETTO.
DAY EIGHT: Thursday, August 5
Somehow after cleaning the floor the night before, the Book of Answers went missing. It was around, but I didn't locate it until after Lore had left. Ying had stepped out with her friends for the day, and those of us left trundled out to seek an internet connection. Was successful at the market we hit the night before, but a no-go on a free hotspot.
Around 1pm, we met up with isamu1916 where he took gwee, eaglemania, et and I around NY for a quickie drive-by tour and to drop apartment keys off to dormando. My packed bags in his trunk, we swished off of Manhattan and entered Long Island Flushing area to shop at a mall.
coolest toys EVAH. spidey vs nemesis
As I hadn't bought anything for the last week, this was my day of damage. Bought lots of pretty things at VS, clothes at the Gap and Ann Taylor, and the Matrix Nemesis poseable toy from the Kay Bee Toys for $15!! SO cool. I currently have him duking it out with the same Spidey I made shax buy.
After mall carnage, we went to walk around Chinatown somewhere in Astoria and bought some art supplies. Some dude there was penciling comics too and we stopped there for a while to talk. Grabbed BBT to go and I hit the airport with plenty of time to spare.
Especially since my flight was delayed by an hour! BOO! At any rate, I finally got home at around 10:30 and instead of slipping blissfully into bed, I stayed up to 3am checking email, LJ, and... FFXI.
Overall, had an awesome time. I'm a little bruised from all the floor sleeping, but man, so worth it for all the good times and being able to hang with friends!
Can't wait for Anime North - I hope many of you will consider coming up... lots of cheapy food and hotel! Not to mention being able to make Tom even prettier!
warning: I have memory like swiss cheese and if I left someone out or confused you, my bad. Just poke me and lemme know.
warning: LONG.
DAY ONE: Thursday, July 29
Packed since the night before, my sis and I raced home so that we could go to Boston and Baltimore, respectively. Moments of panic ensued when my iPod mini was fritzing earlier in the day, but it came alive after some panicked postings and searching online. Reset is your friend. (score one!) I have to say, I really like those auto check-in kiosks. NO LINE! (score two!) Also, was thinking I'd need to check-in my luggage, since it was a heavy load, carrying the tOFU books, but apparently, I did not! (score three!)
Caught the shuttle for a cheapy $11 or something and texted lorelai my arrival. Attempted to connect with TAC-room. Stoopid me was on the wrong floor. Luckily, no one was in those room. I met with success one floor up and was greeted with giant Hyatt suite and gazillions of people.
Now I will cheat and steal edit from gwee's Otakon post...
So people loitering the room were: lorelai, dormando, nemissa, naruto_nerd, kyubikitsy, yoseshiro, junosama, isamu1916, pmbq, nunuu, gwee, phr00tie, et, shax...
Considering that I know some of these people by their REALTM names, I have no idea who's who in LJ-land. ladyfox and mentalguy came later.
Chatted with lorelai off and on all evening about our perpetual obsession, FFXI. Somewhere in there, an attempt to order a pizza went awry, a party of 8 udon colourists dormando, went to pick up industry tickets, (with junosama totally being in charge.. heeehehe... juno: "we're missing some people here..." otakon: "yes mam!"), and a second pizza attempt.
Luckily, the second attempt worked, but half of us had already slept and the rest of us had minimally staved off hunger with the Clodhoppers and maple cookies I had brought down for group consumption. et seemed to have been gnawing on ice to supplement the sugar-laden feast.
Since gwee was sharing bed-space with shax, I got to steal gwee's airbed. Sweet bliss of sleep came quickly, 'cause it was near 3am when we finally all crashed, I think.
DAY TWO: Friday, July 30
Woke up and met everyone at the Bistro 660 in the hotel to have a nice breakfast. Smuggled some corn pops out. Didn't see them for the rest of the con. Assumed SOMEONE STOLE MY CORNPOPS!! bad cornpop theif! While breakfasting, pirochan arrived! So cool to finally meet our distant friends of so long!
WOW
Congregated in the alley where pmbq, my tablemate for the con was already there. junosama was going to share our space too, but there was more space over by the TAC crew so she ditched us to go there. Did moderate sales and broke early to go to Paulo's for dinner with everyone where WOW (first shown to me at breakfast), was taught to all. Variations of LOL, OMG, and WOOT were played out in the course of the evening.
Scooted on back to the hotel where we talked into the night and I took the floor this time 'round, as gwee had been chased out of bed with Shax the night before. Due to innatention and innebreation, Tom got his thumbnail painted red by me, after I had finished with ladyfox's manicure in preparation for her costume the next day.
Tom is PURDY.
DAY THREE: Saturday, July 31
Alley opened at 9am, (so I think..). Woke up at at 10:15 and Lore and I booted on out of the room, leaving the rest to fend for themselves.
Did some sales and then took off for lunch with mochiman and talked about being a colourist and working in comics and the longterm ups and downs of the industry. Good to see friends, and I think he will join us next year in the Otakon alley insanity.
After I returned, I sold off all my tOFU's and began taking additional commissions here and there. NO TOFU TO BRING HOME GOOD. very happy.
Did a quickie tour of the Dealer's room near closing and said hello to Steven Bennet of Iron Cat and Robert DeJesus. Wish I could have spent more time saying hi, but cons are perpetually busy.
Ran back to alley and finished some more commissions and we made our way to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner... which didn't happen, since it was a 1.5 - 2hr wait for a table of 20. oh well. I did get to paint the rest of Tom's fingers on the one hand to match his thumb before dinner tho!
PURDY!!
Went to the food court instead to eat and half of us brought it back to the hotel to eat, while another half stayed in the court. Gathered back together after the food and some stayed to chat, others when to events for the evening.
Was going to go to the dance, but a persistent headache wouldn't leave and I thought it better to not be bouncing around. Had a nice chat and then dozed off while others played FF Crystal Chronicles.
DAY FOUR: Sunday, August 1
Sessi! Warcraft! ON TRAIN!!!
Woke up reasonably early today and got to packing stuffs. I left the room earlier to hit the alley and get those pesky commissions done. I discovered during the course of the day that I had forgotten a couple of them. D'OH. However, the people were forgiving and I got them done pretty quick.
Met up with a Linkshell mate from FFXI who kindly got us Dealer's Room swag for us.
After the alley closed, we packed up and dropped some things off at the hotel and foraged for food at the food court again. This time, we simply ate at the Uno's instead of doing a 2.5 hr wait AT THREE PM for the Cheesecake factory, (whhhy so busy...!!). We then had et doing some food art with her leftovers. very odd...
...waited for 15 minutes to buy $6 US cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory, but it was super nummy. Shared it with everyone and then hung out for a few in the Hyatt before hopping two Taxi's to the Amtrak.
hobo picnic!
Sadly, we discovered that pmbq wasn't actually taking the same train we were. :(
The train ride was super great for me, as I discovered that shax had the items eaglemania and I needed to complete the Reserve Mission in FFTA!! SO EXCITING!
Also, dormando was logging online in the train due to his uber cool combo of laptop and cellphone w/ internet acceess. SO G33KY COOL.
Made it into NY and within 15 minutes saw a cockroach skitter across the walk way. Did a three-wave entry to the Wellington, so as to avoid raising the hotel staff's suspicions of why there may be ten people in one hotel room.
DAY FIVE: Monday, August 2
Today, we hit up the Natural History Museum. Very cool and got some great shots. Wish that we had had time to sketch more, but alas, closing time came faster than expected. After a brief stop at the hotel, eaglemania, ying, et, Shax, and I made up Team B and went to Toys R Us to seek out some fun things.
Bought some candies and Cranium for Lore and Dorm.
That evening, some people opted for Udon/Ramen, and the rest, (comprising of Shax, Lorelai, dormando, ying and I), went to a fancy Greek restaurant next to the hotel called Molyvos. Lore and I shared Lamb and grilled octopus. mmmmmm... so good.
Returned to try and get online to make meagre postings and cry about how I couldn't log on to FFXI since I didn't have my long complicated code memorized.
DAY SIX: Tuesday, August 3
Lormspace
Got up eaaaaaaaarly to get Lore moved into her new digs on Wall st. Breakfasted at Niko Niko, riiiight across from the new Lormspace and it was nummy. Yay udon noodles! There was lots of waiting, but by the time 2pm rolled around, gwee had joined us and we had unpacked a fair amount of stuff.
mmmm... sugar... (@serendipity's)
We taxied it up to Serendipity and met up with Team B (a.k.a. the late risers), as well as hooking up with pmbq. There we had lunch, (good), and desserts, (EXCELLENT). We defeated the desserts of Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, a Chocolate Blackout Cake, Crème de la Crème Cheesecake and Strawberries and Cream. More food porn ensued.
After, we toddled on back to the Wellington to rest up before seeing Rent on Broadway. The evening outing was attended by Ying, Lore, Dorm, Gwee and I. Apprehensive about seeing Spice Girl Mel C as Mimi that evening, we were well pleased by the end. Second half really pulled the play together, and Lore and I spent the rest of the evening humming it up.
Got back to the hotel to find that et was the Hero of Darkness EXTREEEEEME and after our five-star dining of McDonald's, proceeded to load up Crystal Chronicles to continue the evening.
DAY SEVEN: Wednesday, August 4
After a late start, ate at Niko Niko again and then went to Kinokuniya. Passed by Rockefeller square and took some shots. Didn't have much time at Kinokuniya's and sadly, no copic refills available. T_T I did buy a fine liner white out pen that was dysfunctional.
After seeing Shax off to his bus ride to the airport, we made our way to SoHo, but got detoured to Chinatown. Bought some a really pretty hair clip and necklace from So Good Jewelry. SPARKLY!!!
OMG!
Passed by a VS but didn't go in and finally entered the Apple store, (that I kept calling the iMac or iPod store all weekend), and met up with Dorm and Tom (plus GF). Bought a pair of collapsible earphones and passed on the ugly skins for my mini. Need to look online for better ones.
Had dinner at a Mexican diner place and et engaged in some leftover plate art again. Tom tried to compete but failed.
Made plans with Tom for the next day and trundled back to Lormspace. While Lorm was moved in, there were still boxes everywhere and very little floor space for us to hobo in. Using the Book of Answers, (boxes were numbered randomly, so this was the key), et took charge and we all began cleaning up. By the time she got to the floors, our feet were grimy from the move. Ordering us to the bathroom to wash our feet, Lore tried to push her way next in line, but gwee was adamant and commanded, "RESPECT THE LINE!"
Neither graceful nor stylish was I, killing myself laughing as I'm trying to wash my feet. But who cared? We were all giggling away.
So, things unpacked, floors clean, boxes smashed... some people wanted to shower... uh oh. we didn't buy the shower curtain we had put down on the list earlier that day.
So instead, we cobbled together a shower curtain out of white plastic garbage bags, weighted down by... pennies. et wanted to decorate it, and so wrote "RESPECT THE LINE" to commemorate it.
SO GHETTO.
DAY EIGHT: Thursday, August 5
Somehow after cleaning the floor the night before, the Book of Answers went missing. It was around, but I didn't locate it until after Lore had left. Ying had stepped out with her friends for the day, and those of us left trundled out to seek an internet connection. Was successful at the market we hit the night before, but a no-go on a free hotspot.
Around 1pm, we met up with isamu1916 where he took gwee, eaglemania, et and I around NY for a quickie drive-by tour and to drop apartment keys off to dormando. My packed bags in his trunk, we swished off of Manhattan and entered Long Island Flushing area to shop at a mall.
coolest toys EVAH. spidey vs nemesis
As I hadn't bought anything for the last week, this was my day of damage. Bought lots of pretty things at VS, clothes at the Gap and Ann Taylor, and the Matrix Nemesis poseable toy from the Kay Bee Toys for $15!! SO cool. I currently have him duking it out with the same Spidey I made shax buy.
After mall carnage, we went to walk around Chinatown somewhere in Astoria and bought some art supplies. Some dude there was penciling comics too and we stopped there for a while to talk. Grabbed BBT to go and I hit the airport with plenty of time to spare.
Especially since my flight was delayed by an hour! BOO! At any rate, I finally got home at around 10:30 and instead of slipping blissfully into bed, I stayed up to 3am checking email, LJ, and... FFXI.
Overall, had an awesome time. I'm a little bruised from all the floor sleeping, but man, so worth it for all the good times and being able to hang with friends!
Can't wait for Anime North - I hope many of you will consider coming up... lots of cheapy food and hotel! Not to mention being able to make Tom even prettier!