First trip to Persacon = HAPPEE!!!
Well, that was a lot of fun. I should know; I can barely move!
Angel and I went to Persacon this weekend. It was her very first con. I think I should build her up to Atlanta without just dropping her in there wholesale. That being said, the weekend was a huge success! She and I were only able to go for Friday and Saturday, but we got almost all of our fun-having in during that time.
We were already exhausted by the time we got there Friday afternoon, since we had spent the entire morning out and about running errands.
We got there in time to sit down at a Panel with the one-and-only Walter Emanuel Jones, the original black Power Ranger! I hope I look that good at 39. Time to hit the gym! Anyway, this panel had us sit down and watch a couple of episodes that were very heavy on the "Zack" factor, with Walter providing running commentary. He actually MST3K'ed himself once or twice! Later that afternoon, we went to a stunt fighting lesson with Mark Musashi (a.k.a., the guy that yells "SHIIIT!!!"). He's really funny, and quite intimidating for a 5'10", ~160 lb. man. He's made of that much win. Lauren had a little mini-orgasm when she told me he would be attending. *SIGH* Fangirls. Go fig. (j/k)
Saturday was the big day, though. Angel and I sped over to Decatur in time to attend a salsa dancing class taught by Walter. Now, when she and I have dancing at our wedding, we can credit our having salsa dancing to the fact we were taught by one of the original Power Rangers! Also got introduced to Mark Musashi. Angel developed a bit of a con-crush. I think I was also on the receiving end of a conc-crush also. Short little brunette chick. Danced with her at the salsa lesson, and complimented her on how well she danced. Every time she saw me for the rest of the day, I got this massive, huge smile and a slight giggle. I didn't know if she was 14 or 24. Went into massive aloofness mode in defense. Not for my own sake, but for hers. Angel is VERY... um... "protective."
That evening wrapped up in the most fantastic way possible: rock concert. Had some hard rock from "The Man Power," a band from my home town, and then some funkier fare by Electric Attitude. Laura and I danced the night away and finally buggered off around midnight.
Picked up some neat stuff at the dealers' room. Got a copy of the Death Note (no, not the manga, the actual DEATH NOTE), an Aperture Laboratories t-shirt, a rave-tastic electronic pendant, and a copy of "Green Legend Ran." One of the dealers had a massive collection of old movies, and I specifically asked for ones that I remember seeing on the sci-fi channel back when they did their week-long anime movie thing. GLR was the only one I could find from that collection. Laura bought cat ears. (I have pictures. She is adorable.)
I also got her a little treat: a bubble gun. This thing was one of the highlights. Just stand in a hallway, or a large room, or ANYWHERE there are people and set this thing off. What follows is someone shouting "BUBBLES!!!" and a mad scramble by at least half a dozen otaku (male and female) trying to pop these things.
Other highlights of the weekend:
- The "Dance Circle": Was walking around with Angel and Elise, and caught the sound of a very familiar song. I tore down the hallway and up into the courtyard to find what I feared: a Caramell Dansen party. Took a video of the whole thing. They also did the opening dances from Haruhi and Lucky Star, two mainstays of otaku dancing. They then tore into the electric slide, so we had to join in.
- Free Glomps: At an anime con, you are always on the lookout for costumes, as slight as they may be. Saw one guy walking around in ordinary clothes - t-shirt, old jeans, snow lid - but there was a piece of paper taped to his shirt. As I neared, I saw that the paper said "GLOMP ME." I stopped and stared. He did the same. Seeing as most people were ignoring the request, I shrugged and glomped him. Apparently, I started a trend, because more people started glomping him at that moment.
- The best Iron Man costume, evar! Even better than the one from the movie. Get this: he was a giant iron! A giant clothes iron with the unibeam on the chest and repulsors on the hands. The suit was even electronic! The unibeam, repulsors, and the steam holes in the iron face glowed! The dude even posed for a picture in the most hilarious way possible: he leaned against a wall, face-down!
- Mark Musashi, professional action star, trying to teach his moves to a group of amateurs on stage. The problem was, he couldn't teach them much without risking people getting hurt. Seriously, he ran out of things to teach them: twice! The second time, I called out from the crowd. "Breakfalls!" Mark turned to me, eyes gone wide, and said, "We are NOT doing breakfalls!"
- A hundred-pound girl moshing with another girl more than twice her size... HORIZONTALLY. I will say no more.
- A girl wearing a full-body PenPen costume in a hallway that got up to eighty degrees.
- A PERFECT Master Roshi! He even got the laugh right! Given that DBZ is a bit of a taboo when it comes to cos-playing, this dude had balls.
- A Persacon rendition of a popular Japanese game show. One of the games was Taboo: Anime Titles.
- Kyle Hebert (Gohan, the DBZ narrator, Kamina, Kiba, Aizen) and his fashion sense. The guy had a pair of jeans that featured a collage of a lot of the characters he has voice-acted!
- The cosplay competition that featured skits by the costumed individuals. My favorite has to be the quartet that dressed up as Yoko, Kamina, Simon, and Viral from Gurren Lagaan. They walked up onto the stage, posed, pointed at the sky, and shouted: "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE!?!"
- Walter Effin' Jones tearing up the dance floor during Electric Attitude's concert. That dude can move! Hey, Walter, I don't blame you for never wearing sleeves. If I had guns like that I'd show them off all the time too! BTW, I never knew until Lauren mentioned it a few weeks ago that Walter only has nine fingers...
- Speaking of Nine Fingers: Walter's panel included a few stories from the set. He and Austin St. John (Jason, the Red Ranger) were thick as thieves. One of their stories involved Austin finding a mannequin with Walter's same skin tone in the prop department. They tore the left middle finger off and Walter held it between his first and ring fingers on his left hand, making it look like he had five fingers. They then went off to shoot a scene. The camera was about to roll, but the costumer stood up and asked the director top stop for a moment, saying something was not right with the costumes. She ran up, took away the finger, and then told the director to resume!
Angel and I went to Persacon this weekend. It was her very first con. I think I should build her up to Atlanta without just dropping her in there wholesale. That being said, the weekend was a huge success! She and I were only able to go for Friday and Saturday, but we got almost all of our fun-having in during that time.
We were already exhausted by the time we got there Friday afternoon, since we had spent the entire morning out and about running errands.
We got there in time to sit down at a Panel with the one-and-only Walter Emanuel Jones, the original black Power Ranger! I hope I look that good at 39. Time to hit the gym! Anyway, this panel had us sit down and watch a couple of episodes that were very heavy on the "Zack" factor, with Walter providing running commentary. He actually MST3K'ed himself once or twice! Later that afternoon, we went to a stunt fighting lesson with Mark Musashi (a.k.a., the guy that yells "SHIIIT!!!"). He's really funny, and quite intimidating for a 5'10", ~160 lb. man. He's made of that much win. Lauren had a little mini-orgasm when she told me he would be attending. *SIGH* Fangirls. Go fig. (j/k)
Saturday was the big day, though. Angel and I sped over to Decatur in time to attend a salsa dancing class taught by Walter. Now, when she and I have dancing at our wedding, we can credit our having salsa dancing to the fact we were taught by one of the original Power Rangers! Also got introduced to Mark Musashi. Angel developed a bit of a con-crush. I think I was also on the receiving end of a conc-crush also. Short little brunette chick. Danced with her at the salsa lesson, and complimented her on how well she danced. Every time she saw me for the rest of the day, I got this massive, huge smile and a slight giggle. I didn't know if she was 14 or 24. Went into massive aloofness mode in defense. Not for my own sake, but for hers. Angel is VERY... um... "protective."
That evening wrapped up in the most fantastic way possible: rock concert. Had some hard rock from "The Man Power," a band from my home town, and then some funkier fare by Electric Attitude. Laura and I danced the night away and finally buggered off around midnight.
Picked up some neat stuff at the dealers' room. Got a copy of the Death Note (no, not the manga, the actual DEATH NOTE), an Aperture Laboratories t-shirt, a rave-tastic electronic pendant, and a copy of "Green Legend Ran." One of the dealers had a massive collection of old movies, and I specifically asked for ones that I remember seeing on the sci-fi channel back when they did their week-long anime movie thing. GLR was the only one I could find from that collection. Laura bought cat ears. (I have pictures. She is adorable.)
I also got her a little treat: a bubble gun. This thing was one of the highlights. Just stand in a hallway, or a large room, or ANYWHERE there are people and set this thing off. What follows is someone shouting "BUBBLES!!!" and a mad scramble by at least half a dozen otaku (male and female) trying to pop these things.
Other highlights of the weekend:
- The "Dance Circle": Was walking around with Angel and Elise, and caught the sound of a very familiar song. I tore down the hallway and up into the courtyard to find what I feared: a Caramell Dansen party. Took a video of the whole thing. They also did the opening dances from Haruhi and Lucky Star, two mainstays of otaku dancing. They then tore into the electric slide, so we had to join in.
- Free Glomps: At an anime con, you are always on the lookout for costumes, as slight as they may be. Saw one guy walking around in ordinary clothes - t-shirt, old jeans, snow lid - but there was a piece of paper taped to his shirt. As I neared, I saw that the paper said "GLOMP ME." I stopped and stared. He did the same. Seeing as most people were ignoring the request, I shrugged and glomped him. Apparently, I started a trend, because more people started glomping him at that moment.
- The best Iron Man costume, evar! Even better than the one from the movie. Get this: he was a giant iron! A giant clothes iron with the unibeam on the chest and repulsors on the hands. The suit was even electronic! The unibeam, repulsors, and the steam holes in the iron face glowed! The dude even posed for a picture in the most hilarious way possible: he leaned against a wall, face-down!
- Mark Musashi, professional action star, trying to teach his moves to a group of amateurs on stage. The problem was, he couldn't teach them much without risking people getting hurt. Seriously, he ran out of things to teach them: twice! The second time, I called out from the crowd. "Breakfalls!" Mark turned to me, eyes gone wide, and said, "We are NOT doing breakfalls!"
- A hundred-pound girl moshing with another girl more than twice her size... HORIZONTALLY. I will say no more.
- A girl wearing a full-body PenPen costume in a hallway that got up to eighty degrees.
- A PERFECT Master Roshi! He even got the laugh right! Given that DBZ is a bit of a taboo when it comes to cos-playing, this dude had balls.
- A Persacon rendition of a popular Japanese game show. One of the games was Taboo: Anime Titles.
- Kyle Hebert (Gohan, the DBZ narrator, Kamina, Kiba, Aizen) and his fashion sense. The guy had a pair of jeans that featured a collage of a lot of the characters he has voice-acted!
- The cosplay competition that featured skits by the costumed individuals. My favorite has to be the quartet that dressed up as Yoko, Kamina, Simon, and Viral from Gurren Lagaan. They walked up onto the stage, posed, pointed at the sky, and shouted: "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE!?!"
- Walter Effin' Jones tearing up the dance floor during Electric Attitude's concert. That dude can move! Hey, Walter, I don't blame you for never wearing sleeves. If I had guns like that I'd show them off all the time too! BTW, I never knew until Lauren mentioned it a few weeks ago that Walter only has nine fingers...
- Speaking of Nine Fingers: Walter's panel included a few stories from the set. He and Austin St. John (Jason, the Red Ranger) were thick as thieves. One of their stories involved Austin finding a mannequin with Walter's same skin tone in the prop department. They tore the left middle finger off and Walter held it between his first and ring fingers on his left hand, making it look like he had five fingers. They then went off to shoot a scene. The camera was about to roll, but the costumer stood up and asked the director top stop for a moment, saying something was not right with the costumes. She ran up, took away the finger, and then told the director to resume!