Anaheim Anime Expo Report
Oh boy. Here we go. Let's see how much of this I can get done before I'm (in theory!) to be dragged off to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2. (I say "in theory" because I'm not sure how 'in stone' it is.)
Before you begin reading, remember that I'm something of a writer and I like telling stories. These aren't going to be 'short' recaps. I'm writing up anything I feel like is significant enough to yammer about. If you're just looking for a moment of entertainment, come back later. :3
So, last I left you guys, it was 3 a.m. Eastern time in Orlando, Florida and I'd had abooouutt... four hours of sleep (I was on the phone with derjmeister and then aria01)...
My flight was to leave out at - as I remember - 6 am EST. The Orlando airport is really kind of neat. It has a hotel in it! I've never heard of such!!! That's a brilliant idea! Then if someone had a red-eye flight or someone's picking up a red-eye flight, they could just get a room and stay over! Brill! The balconies look over this sort of plaza area. There's a fountain coming right out of the floor. Which was also kinda neat.
Anyway. It turned out I was really asleep when we were leaving out of Vistana, because I neglected to pick up my cell phone before we left. "GASP" I say with a verily shocked expression. "What?" asks Mom. "I have left the cell phone back at Vistana...... ....." and Mom goes, "Well, guess you'll have to take your dad's." Argh. But that's the phone number EVERYONE HAS. (Everyone being most importantly derjmeister and ravichan, but also the barely plausible Tokyopop going, "HAY WE GOT YOUR SUBMISSION. THUMBS UP." XD; ) So I took Dad's because I am not stupid and my flight left too early for someone to drive back to Vistana and back to the airport in order to get my own cell phone to me in time. Still. Grr. Gnar. Wah. Oh well.
The flight from Orlando to Atlanta was Delta, but it was being done by Song Airlines. Which was cool because the plane was NEW and had cool touch-screen tv things in the back of the seats. They gave us complimentary headphones and I was thusly able to watch one of several tv stations or listen to one of a handful of radio stations. It was very sweet. I looked forward to the next two flights (ATL - LAX & LAX - ATL), assuming it would be just as high tech. Alas, the flight from ATL to LAX was in an older model with some sort of cheapass screen in front of the front row. Oh well. They were playing The Pink Panther anyway, which isn't a movie I was particularly interested in anyway.
On these two flights I probably did... actually.. I can count how many sketches I did! So... after counting, it looks like six or seven sketches (I can't say for certain, because I can't remember if I did the questionable one at an airport or in the hotel lobby later - and considering it was one I gave to derjmeister, I can't look at the sketch and figure it out by triggering a memory. XD; ) Anyway. I did a shocking lot for me in such a relatively short period of time. They're all loose and zippy because I was nervous. I might scan some of these later.
ANYWAY. Arrive at LAX and sort of have the vapors. This is the first time I've ever arrived solo at a destination (as opposed at a connecting flight) without someone being there to take me in hand. I had to navigate a new airport by myself and find a shuttle to my hotel. By myself. (Yes, I'm somewhat helpless, shaddap.) Oh, and get my luggage (CURSE ME for packing stuff!). Speaking of, it took forever for my luggage to be spat out of the carosel and I had to ask a big burly looking guy to help me with it. I was all, "Esscuseeeeee? Would you mind getting... that one for me?" and he goes, "This one? Sure." and wrangled it for me and I was all, "Yiieee thankyouuuuu! You earn at least 30 cool points, thankyouuuu!" I'm not sure how he reacted to the gift of cool points because I shuffled off wheeling my luggage immediately. I hope he uses his cool points wisely.
I manage to find the place to meet my shuttle and am forced to wait about 15 minutes or so before they finally go, "Oh, this is yours." and load me up. I hop into the first bench seat and look forward to heading to the hotel. After all, there are only two empty seats left in this shuttle, not counting the passenger seat up front next to the driver. Not so! Guessing from conversation of other AX goers, they've been circling the airport for the last hour and a half, if not longer, waiting for enough people to fill up the shuttle. Uhm. Hmm. It only took two more stops to fill up all three of the empty seats. But that left me in the bitch seat between two guys I did not know. I didn't have any ability to move. These guys weren't chubby or anything, but they weren't skinny geeks either. (Nor am I, for that matter.) It's not, exactly, that I have a thing with claustrophobia, but anyone who did would have started getting extremely uncomfortable.
No. Me? I'm more scared of insane drivers, which our shuttle driver was - along with EVERYONE ELSE IN LA. Holy shit. Just because you could stand between two cars it doesn't mean that a freaking VAN can fit there, you crazy people. Because I generally feel I should meet Death with my eyes open (and it also helps me retain my balance, which I would need in order to stay upright and not lean all over two strange boys), I stared directly ahead and only looked at the scenery out of the corner of my eye (in case Death was lurking there, I suppose).
It was insane. The driver was insane. The other drivers on the road were insane. The AX kids behind me were nervous geeks and talking insanely (no doubt compounded by their apparent lack of sleep). I was beginning to think that I was insane. After the first 20 minutes or so, the people behind me shut up and the guy to my right kept texting his friend who was sitting in the back. They would giggle every once in awhile. Enough about the drive. It eventually ended, dropping me off in the front drive of the MARRIOTT. Horray!
I looked around the Marriott for Vikki (ravichan) and did not see a cute little Asian girl looking around for me, so I rolled my luggage over to one of the chairs and sat. There, I passed time by reading this book (hell YES, research for duchessoffelix and to a lesser extent some of my other neoswatkats characters...) or sketching or jerking my head up every time I thought I saw a cute Asian girl. And, let me tell you, there are a lot of cute Asian girls who decided to wander around the Marriott. I gave up pretty quickly for fear my head would snap off or I'd look directly at Vikki and not recognise her (I have the facial recall of a plush bear - meaning, I would think, none) and then she'd think it wasn't me and then she'd wander off AND WE WOULD NEVER EVER SEE EACH OTHER THE ENTIRE TRIP (I never said I was entirely logical. XD; ) So if Vikki wandered through while I was sitting there, I didn't notice and neither did she. XD AHhahaa.
At some point, a cute guy sat near me and when he saw me looking up from my book, he asked me if I was there for the anime convention. Why yes, yes I was, was he? No, in fact, he was there for the gay square dancing convention. Apparently, he shitted me not, for it was a real thing. We talked for a good 20/30 minutes, in which he tried to convince me that square dancing was awesome (still dubious, but I wouldn't have knocked it before his attempt at converting me to the square dancing love) and invited me to come watch. I also showed him the model sheets for "Cherry Hill" (my pitch to Tokyopop). He was impressed. I, however, saw them and went, "Ugh. I can do so much better than I did in late April/early May" - which I totally can! That was somewhat gratifying. I hadn't looked at them since sending off my pitch packet.
Eventually, Jess's (this Jess > derjmeister) plane showed up, so she called my cell and got transferred to my Dad's cell and we talked for a bit while she got her luggage and I warned her about the CRAZY SHUTTLE. I think she'd found the shuttle-stop when we stopped talking because she thought someone was calling in. And shortly after, Vikki left a voice mail on my Dad's cell, but the number didn't show up in my Recent Calls or anything, which meant I couldn't call her back. >_< And, in fact, it had never rung through in the first place! Argh!
Anyway. Two hours after that, Jess's shuttle showed up, so we checked in and trucked our luggage upstairs to our room (room 714!) and got in touch with Vikki and went back downstairs to meet Vikki in the lobby! HORRAY VIKKEH! Her co-worker Sly was with her. Hello Sly! We decided to get our badges and after I ran back up to my room to get my ID, we were off!
My first impression of the convention center: holy shit, I wish I had rollerskates! There were all these super awesome hard, slick cement hangar type floors. AND SO MUCH SPACE!!!! I would pay at least two dollars to go and skate in there for awhile. XD haha.
Vikki, Jess and Sly got into the Industry line (as Vikki and Sly work for an Aussie anime DVD company and Jess works for Tokyopop) and I got into the pre-reg line. There was this cute guy who had a sign that said, "I CAN HELP" - damn right, I'll take you up on that offer, cute guy! I walk up to him and I point to the sign and say, "This says you can help me - can you? XD" and it appeared he could! Truth in advertising? Who would have thought? I should probably have flirted more than I did. Oh well. XD; I'm not sure I'm very good at it anyway! XD
The other three did not yet have their badges, so I hung out with them and yapped until they did get them. It was rather amazing how quick the Industry line for badges wasn't. That taken care of, we went over to the Hilton (which is across the street from the Marriott) and got Vikki's luggage to take back to our room. I was mildly jealous of the nicer room Sly was staying in, until I saw his view. The view was nice and all, I guess (a lovely view of the Marriott across the street!), but OMFG vertigo is bad. And we had a balcony. Balcony trumps the approximate 1/2 foot more of space. XD
La la la. Hmm. I gave Vikki her sketchbook (for our trade) and we looked through it a bit until we decided to go get dinner. We walked for quite awhile, trying to decide where to eat. We kinda kept ruling out the majority of the places we'd passed as either "crap" or "sure to be full of Con-goers". We were about to cross the (million-lane) street to go to Jack in the Box (we were getting tired from walking) when we realized the place we were standing next to was an eatery! I couldn't spell the name of the place we went - partly because it was in Italian and partly because I forget the name. XD HAha. But it was a nice Italian place where they made a point to let us know all their food was made by hand in the store. It was a nice place. Barely anyone was there, which would have surprised me (being Friday on a Con day), but we figured out that it was newly open, so I suppose hadn't had much of a chance to get a customer base. Too bad everyone who wandered in after we did seemed to be a drunken ass. XD;; Not that they really bothered us, but it was weird listening to this one drunken ass ranting to his dinner companion and at one point confusing the waiter, claiming that he was "promised" one of the waiters' white ties the next time he came in. Anyway. Weird. XD; Food was good, though, if you were curious. At least my cheese ravioli was! You can ask the others.
We went back to the Hilton and played: Blackjack, Poker, and then some odd game whose name I can't remember but you played poker hands. I did: well, poorly, and decently, respectively. Horray! Though for the last two games I kept having to ask for clarification of hands. We also played for Starburst gummie candies. Vikki and I, especially, found them amusing. XD;; I think we were tired.
We ended up playing until... about 12:30am, Pacific time. Which meant I'd been awake for over 24 hours. XD;; Jess, Vikki and I went over to our room, had our respective showers and while Jess passed out pretty quickly (despite the fact that the light was on, the tv was on and Vikki and I were squealing and giggling not two feet away from her), Vikki and I stayed up and giggled again over the Sketchbook I did for her, then drew for another few hours. And giggled. Which meant I was awake for well over 24 hours before we finally went to sleep. (I mention this not for sympathy or achievement or anything, just as an indication of my sleeping patterns that got me to sleeping at weird hours now that I'm back home!)
And that was the first day! AHHAHAHA. Yes, very long. I'm not sure the rest of the recaps will be that long, though. For now, I must get into some real clothes so I can go see Pirates 2. :3
Before you begin reading, remember that I'm something of a writer and I like telling stories. These aren't going to be 'short' recaps. I'm writing up anything I feel like is significant enough to yammer about. If you're just looking for a moment of entertainment, come back later. :3
So, last I left you guys, it was 3 a.m. Eastern time in Orlando, Florida and I'd had abooouutt... four hours of sleep (I was on the phone with derjmeister and then aria01)...
My flight was to leave out at - as I remember - 6 am EST. The Orlando airport is really kind of neat. It has a hotel in it! I've never heard of such!!! That's a brilliant idea! Then if someone had a red-eye flight or someone's picking up a red-eye flight, they could just get a room and stay over! Brill! The balconies look over this sort of plaza area. There's a fountain coming right out of the floor. Which was also kinda neat.
Anyway. It turned out I was really asleep when we were leaving out of Vistana, because I neglected to pick up my cell phone before we left. "GASP" I say with a verily shocked expression. "What?" asks Mom. "I have left the cell phone back at Vistana...... ....." and Mom goes, "Well, guess you'll have to take your dad's." Argh. But that's the phone number EVERYONE HAS. (Everyone being most importantly derjmeister and ravichan, but also the barely plausible Tokyopop going, "HAY WE GOT YOUR SUBMISSION. THUMBS UP." XD; ) So I took Dad's because I am not stupid and my flight left too early for someone to drive back to Vistana and back to the airport in order to get my own cell phone to me in time. Still. Grr. Gnar. Wah. Oh well.
The flight from Orlando to Atlanta was Delta, but it was being done by Song Airlines. Which was cool because the plane was NEW and had cool touch-screen tv things in the back of the seats. They gave us complimentary headphones and I was thusly able to watch one of several tv stations or listen to one of a handful of radio stations. It was very sweet. I looked forward to the next two flights (ATL - LAX & LAX - ATL), assuming it would be just as high tech. Alas, the flight from ATL to LAX was in an older model with some sort of cheapass screen in front of the front row. Oh well. They were playing The Pink Panther anyway, which isn't a movie I was particularly interested in anyway.
On these two flights I probably did... actually.. I can count how many sketches I did! So... after counting, it looks like six or seven sketches (I can't say for certain, because I can't remember if I did the questionable one at an airport or in the hotel lobby later - and considering it was one I gave to derjmeister, I can't look at the sketch and figure it out by triggering a memory. XD; ) Anyway. I did a shocking lot for me in such a relatively short period of time. They're all loose and zippy because I was nervous. I might scan some of these later.
ANYWAY. Arrive at LAX and sort of have the vapors. This is the first time I've ever arrived solo at a destination (as opposed at a connecting flight) without someone being there to take me in hand. I had to navigate a new airport by myself and find a shuttle to my hotel. By myself. (Yes, I'm somewhat helpless, shaddap.) Oh, and get my luggage (CURSE ME for packing stuff!). Speaking of, it took forever for my luggage to be spat out of the carosel and I had to ask a big burly looking guy to help me with it. I was all, "Esscuseeeeee? Would you mind getting... that one for me?" and he goes, "This one? Sure." and wrangled it for me and I was all, "Yiieee thankyouuuuu! You earn at least 30 cool points, thankyouuuu!" I'm not sure how he reacted to the gift of cool points because I shuffled off wheeling my luggage immediately. I hope he uses his cool points wisely.
I manage to find the place to meet my shuttle and am forced to wait about 15 minutes or so before they finally go, "Oh, this is yours." and load me up. I hop into the first bench seat and look forward to heading to the hotel. After all, there are only two empty seats left in this shuttle, not counting the passenger seat up front next to the driver. Not so! Guessing from conversation of other AX goers, they've been circling the airport for the last hour and a half, if not longer, waiting for enough people to fill up the shuttle. Uhm. Hmm. It only took two more stops to fill up all three of the empty seats. But that left me in the bitch seat between two guys I did not know. I didn't have any ability to move. These guys weren't chubby or anything, but they weren't skinny geeks either. (Nor am I, for that matter.) It's not, exactly, that I have a thing with claustrophobia, but anyone who did would have started getting extremely uncomfortable.
No. Me? I'm more scared of insane drivers, which our shuttle driver was - along with EVERYONE ELSE IN LA. Holy shit. Just because you could stand between two cars it doesn't mean that a freaking VAN can fit there, you crazy people. Because I generally feel I should meet Death with my eyes open (and it also helps me retain my balance, which I would need in order to stay upright and not lean all over two strange boys), I stared directly ahead and only looked at the scenery out of the corner of my eye (in case Death was lurking there, I suppose).
It was insane. The driver was insane. The other drivers on the road were insane. The AX kids behind me were nervous geeks and talking insanely (no doubt compounded by their apparent lack of sleep). I was beginning to think that I was insane. After the first 20 minutes or so, the people behind me shut up and the guy to my right kept texting his friend who was sitting in the back. They would giggle every once in awhile. Enough about the drive. It eventually ended, dropping me off in the front drive of the MARRIOTT. Horray!
I looked around the Marriott for Vikki (ravichan) and did not see a cute little Asian girl looking around for me, so I rolled my luggage over to one of the chairs and sat. There, I passed time by reading this book (hell YES, research for duchessoffelix and to a lesser extent some of my other neoswatkats characters...) or sketching or jerking my head up every time I thought I saw a cute Asian girl. And, let me tell you, there are a lot of cute Asian girls who decided to wander around the Marriott. I gave up pretty quickly for fear my head would snap off or I'd look directly at Vikki and not recognise her (I have the facial recall of a plush bear - meaning, I would think, none) and then she'd think it wasn't me and then she'd wander off AND WE WOULD NEVER EVER SEE EACH OTHER THE ENTIRE TRIP (I never said I was entirely logical. XD; ) So if Vikki wandered through while I was sitting there, I didn't notice and neither did she. XD AHhahaa.
At some point, a cute guy sat near me and when he saw me looking up from my book, he asked me if I was there for the anime convention. Why yes, yes I was, was he? No, in fact, he was there for the gay square dancing convention. Apparently, he shitted me not, for it was a real thing. We talked for a good 20/30 minutes, in which he tried to convince me that square dancing was awesome (still dubious, but I wouldn't have knocked it before his attempt at converting me to the square dancing love) and invited me to come watch. I also showed him the model sheets for "Cherry Hill" (my pitch to Tokyopop). He was impressed. I, however, saw them and went, "Ugh. I can do so much better than I did in late April/early May" - which I totally can! That was somewhat gratifying. I hadn't looked at them since sending off my pitch packet.
Eventually, Jess's (this Jess > derjmeister) plane showed up, so she called my cell and got transferred to my Dad's cell and we talked for a bit while she got her luggage and I warned her about the CRAZY SHUTTLE. I think she'd found the shuttle-stop when we stopped talking because she thought someone was calling in. And shortly after, Vikki left a voice mail on my Dad's cell, but the number didn't show up in my Recent Calls or anything, which meant I couldn't call her back. >_< And, in fact, it had never rung through in the first place! Argh!
Anyway. Two hours after that, Jess's shuttle showed up, so we checked in and trucked our luggage upstairs to our room (room 714!) and got in touch with Vikki and went back downstairs to meet Vikki in the lobby! HORRAY VIKKEH! Her co-worker Sly was with her. Hello Sly! We decided to get our badges and after I ran back up to my room to get my ID, we were off!
My first impression of the convention center: holy shit, I wish I had rollerskates! There were all these super awesome hard, slick cement hangar type floors. AND SO MUCH SPACE!!!! I would pay at least two dollars to go and skate in there for awhile. XD haha.
Vikki, Jess and Sly got into the Industry line (as Vikki and Sly work for an Aussie anime DVD company and Jess works for Tokyopop) and I got into the pre-reg line. There was this cute guy who had a sign that said, "I CAN HELP" - damn right, I'll take you up on that offer, cute guy! I walk up to him and I point to the sign and say, "This says you can help me - can you? XD" and it appeared he could! Truth in advertising? Who would have thought? I should probably have flirted more than I did. Oh well. XD; I'm not sure I'm very good at it anyway! XD
The other three did not yet have their badges, so I hung out with them and yapped until they did get them. It was rather amazing how quick the Industry line for badges wasn't. That taken care of, we went over to the Hilton (which is across the street from the Marriott) and got Vikki's luggage to take back to our room. I was mildly jealous of the nicer room Sly was staying in, until I saw his view. The view was nice and all, I guess (a lovely view of the Marriott across the street!), but OMFG vertigo is bad. And we had a balcony. Balcony trumps the approximate 1/2 foot more of space. XD
La la la. Hmm. I gave Vikki her sketchbook (for our trade) and we looked through it a bit until we decided to go get dinner. We walked for quite awhile, trying to decide where to eat. We kinda kept ruling out the majority of the places we'd passed as either "crap" or "sure to be full of Con-goers". We were about to cross the (million-lane) street to go to Jack in the Box (we were getting tired from walking) when we realized the place we were standing next to was an eatery! I couldn't spell the name of the place we went - partly because it was in Italian and partly because I forget the name. XD HAha. But it was a nice Italian place where they made a point to let us know all their food was made by hand in the store. It was a nice place. Barely anyone was there, which would have surprised me (being Friday on a Con day), but we figured out that it was newly open, so I suppose hadn't had much of a chance to get a customer base. Too bad everyone who wandered in after we did seemed to be a drunken ass. XD;; Not that they really bothered us, but it was weird listening to this one drunken ass ranting to his dinner companion and at one point confusing the waiter, claiming that he was "promised" one of the waiters' white ties the next time he came in. Anyway. Weird. XD; Food was good, though, if you were curious. At least my cheese ravioli was! You can ask the others.
We went back to the Hilton and played: Blackjack, Poker, and then some odd game whose name I can't remember but you played poker hands. I did: well, poorly, and decently, respectively. Horray! Though for the last two games I kept having to ask for clarification of hands. We also played for Starburst gummie candies. Vikki and I, especially, found them amusing. XD;; I think we were tired.
We ended up playing until... about 12:30am, Pacific time. Which meant I'd been awake for over 24 hours. XD;; Jess, Vikki and I went over to our room, had our respective showers and while Jess passed out pretty quickly (despite the fact that the light was on, the tv was on and Vikki and I were squealing and giggling not two feet away from her), Vikki and I stayed up and giggled again over the Sketchbook I did for her, then drew for another few hours. And giggled. Which meant I was awake for well over 24 hours before we finally went to sleep. (I mention this not for sympathy or achievement or anything, just as an indication of my sleeping patterns that got me to sleeping at weird hours now that I'm back home!)
And that was the first day! AHHAHAHA. Yes, very long. I'm not sure the rest of the recaps will be that long, though. For now, I must get into some real clothes so I can go see Pirates 2. :3