Ohayocon 2011 Con Report (About Damn Time!!)
Oh man, I can feel the soil falling over my head. Today has been so long, mostly because I forgot that my alcohol tolerance isn't what it used to be since I went to the hospital, maybe partied too hard last night, and had to be the embarrassing train wreck carried home and tended to by friends. One of which is a very new one (Jano of the Warcraft portrait I posted about a week ago, incidentally), so I'm like, still super paranoid about being a giant fun ruiner. Because I'm hyper sensitive about making a bad impression. I guess I deserve it by wanting to perpetuate the fun longer. Also, I haven't had a night out in a few weeks so... that's my story and I'm sticking to it! (More or less....)
Needless to say, I want to take my mind off of that obsessive track, so what better way than to finally type up this damn adventure me, Lindsay (whitexmouse) and Casey had with this year's Ohayocon!!
So because God hates me and loves getting as many lulz as possible out of me, he decided to make the sky dump snow all down the northeast region of the country the day we were going to leave NYC and head down to my mom's place in DC so we could split up the journey with some sleep before kidnapping her car. We were going to leave Wednesday night but didn't end up getting out of the city until about noon on Thursday, which sucked. Between that initially planned leave time and the time we actually DID go was a lot of bus scheduling confusion, like three tickets for trips that ended up getting canceled and a lot of chilling in a diner Seinfeld style while we waited to get on our way. Never take Megabus if you travel in this area, btw: use Bolt or the tried and true Chinatown lines, grr.
Anyway, we finally ended up at my mom's powerless house (thanks stupid weather) around 4PM on Thursday. We pretty much facerolled inside to take blankets and pillows and such, grabbed some food and then piled into the car to drive immediately out to Columbus. That leg of the trip was more or less uneventful except for the mini snowstorm that struck just inside Ohio. When we finally got to my friend Walter's place, it was probably a small miracle we weren't dead, tbh.
Ohayocon itself has grown as a con over the past six years or so, but it's still one of my favourite cons, even if they do suck hardcore at scheduling. (More on that in a minute.) The cosplay is always really nice and the crowd, for the most part, is a good one, and I have many friends that regularly attend. (Like TK Maxwell, Cherokee, Sandra and that whole team of awesome!!) And while not every panel was amazing, there were definitely some awesome ones in there, and I always appreciate a con that focuses more on fan-run events than things that are super corporate out the butt coughcoughOtakoncough.
They really fucked up on scheduling though. One of my panels, which was on figure drawing, wasn't even on the schedule, and they had to rearrange a ton of shit to put it in there, so no one knew when the shit anything was going on. They almost canceled my Copic panel on false information before I got there, and they didn't have a projector set up in the room, which totally screwed up my presentation. At least our fanfic panel rocked like crazy, though. We're gonna try and do that one at Anime NEXT and hopefully get two hours for it, because we had to cram it in srsbsns. Hopefully we'll tape it too and use it for our new nerd podcast!! (More on THAT at the end.)
The best panel we saw was on Evangelion. This guy knew his shit, and I have a new nerd holy grail, which is an artbook entitled 'The Last Year of Ryoji Kaji: 2015'. If ANYONE sees it, grab it for me and I will do whatever you want, omg. We saw some of this hilarious little omake Eva series that's just so ridiculous and crack, but awesome. And we learned of the existence of Eva World, which is a new segment in a theme park near Tokyo. Move over giant RX Gundam: there's more than one lifesize mecha in town! (Also, Eva themed hotel rooms? YES!! I want plug suit footie pajamas just for staying there!) The same guys ran a super awesome Gainax panel and helped with my friend Alex's UC Gundam panel. I guess you could say it was a super Eva-themed weekend, since I bought this Misato chibi I've been hunting for for a while, plus another statue of her and one of Kaouru. Go team.
Of course, it wouldn't be Ohayocon without Dusty's Gundam Wing panels. It was super fun seeing him and his gang, and they're GW After Dark panel was ridiculous as ever. We gotta keep the dream alive, guys!! Speaking of Dusty, lol small world story time: he totally used to RP Quatre with a friend of mine from work. Go figure.
And on a slightly un-anime note, one of my favourite things to do at Ohayocon is our annual meal at this restaurant on the high street called The Happy Greek. It is literally the food of the gods. SO GOOD. Walter was kind enough to treat us to a meal there this time around. It was also kind of cool that when we got back from the convention that night, my buddy, Shawn, who also goes to OSU, had dropped by to visit. Haven't seen him face to face in like three years so it was super cool chatting him up. Didn't sleep much, needless to say, hahaha.
We left the convention around 2 on Sunday after pretty much just taking a lot of ridiculous Haruhi and Ritsu photos and cruising the dealer's room one last time. We ate with Walter and then got on the road sort of late, but figured we'd be back by 1AM at the latest. Right? WRONG. Trip was going awesome until a douchebag semi decided to spin out and block the PA Turnpike heading east. We sat in traffic for like 3 hours before they finally rerouted everyone down some back ass roads that added like an extra hour or so onto our trip. I venture to say it was actually worse than our actual trip GETTING there, which is saying something. I am also 90% sure I was asleep behind the wheel for most of that.
On the bright side, though, before disaster struck, we did record the first edition of Lindsay's Podcast Super Awesome Go Time, which is going to basically be me and her geeking out over nerdy shit that we love and recording it. [totally check the shit out of it cause it's awesome]
Urgh, why do I feel like I'm forgetting something?
Needless to say, I want to take my mind off of that obsessive track, so what better way than to finally type up this damn adventure me, Lindsay (whitexmouse) and Casey had with this year's Ohayocon!!
So because God hates me and loves getting as many lulz as possible out of me, he decided to make the sky dump snow all down the northeast region of the country the day we were going to leave NYC and head down to my mom's place in DC so we could split up the journey with some sleep before kidnapping her car. We were going to leave Wednesday night but didn't end up getting out of the city until about noon on Thursday, which sucked. Between that initially planned leave time and the time we actually DID go was a lot of bus scheduling confusion, like three tickets for trips that ended up getting canceled and a lot of chilling in a diner Seinfeld style while we waited to get on our way. Never take Megabus if you travel in this area, btw: use Bolt or the tried and true Chinatown lines, grr.
Anyway, we finally ended up at my mom's powerless house (thanks stupid weather) around 4PM on Thursday. We pretty much facerolled inside to take blankets and pillows and such, grabbed some food and then piled into the car to drive immediately out to Columbus. That leg of the trip was more or less uneventful except for the mini snowstorm that struck just inside Ohio. When we finally got to my friend Walter's place, it was probably a small miracle we weren't dead, tbh.
Ohayocon itself has grown as a con over the past six years or so, but it's still one of my favourite cons, even if they do suck hardcore at scheduling. (More on that in a minute.) The cosplay is always really nice and the crowd, for the most part, is a good one, and I have many friends that regularly attend. (Like TK Maxwell, Cherokee, Sandra and that whole team of awesome!!) And while not every panel was amazing, there were definitely some awesome ones in there, and I always appreciate a con that focuses more on fan-run events than things that are super corporate out the butt coughcoughOtakoncough.
They really fucked up on scheduling though. One of my panels, which was on figure drawing, wasn't even on the schedule, and they had to rearrange a ton of shit to put it in there, so no one knew when the shit anything was going on. They almost canceled my Copic panel on false information before I got there, and they didn't have a projector set up in the room, which totally screwed up my presentation. At least our fanfic panel rocked like crazy, though. We're gonna try and do that one at Anime NEXT and hopefully get two hours for it, because we had to cram it in srsbsns. Hopefully we'll tape it too and use it for our new nerd podcast!! (More on THAT at the end.)
The best panel we saw was on Evangelion. This guy knew his shit, and I have a new nerd holy grail, which is an artbook entitled 'The Last Year of Ryoji Kaji: 2015'. If ANYONE sees it, grab it for me and I will do whatever you want, omg. We saw some of this hilarious little omake Eva series that's just so ridiculous and crack, but awesome. And we learned of the existence of Eva World, which is a new segment in a theme park near Tokyo. Move over giant RX Gundam: there's more than one lifesize mecha in town! (Also, Eva themed hotel rooms? YES!! I want plug suit footie pajamas just for staying there!) The same guys ran a super awesome Gainax panel and helped with my friend Alex's UC Gundam panel. I guess you could say it was a super Eva-themed weekend, since I bought this Misato chibi I've been hunting for for a while, plus another statue of her and one of Kaouru. Go team.
Of course, it wouldn't be Ohayocon without Dusty's Gundam Wing panels. It was super fun seeing him and his gang, and they're GW After Dark panel was ridiculous as ever. We gotta keep the dream alive, guys!! Speaking of Dusty, lol small world story time: he totally used to RP Quatre with a friend of mine from work. Go figure.
And on a slightly un-anime note, one of my favourite things to do at Ohayocon is our annual meal at this restaurant on the high street called The Happy Greek. It is literally the food of the gods. SO GOOD. Walter was kind enough to treat us to a meal there this time around. It was also kind of cool that when we got back from the convention that night, my buddy, Shawn, who also goes to OSU, had dropped by to visit. Haven't seen him face to face in like three years so it was super cool chatting him up. Didn't sleep much, needless to say, hahaha.
We left the convention around 2 on Sunday after pretty much just taking a lot of ridiculous Haruhi and Ritsu photos and cruising the dealer's room one last time. We ate with Walter and then got on the road sort of late, but figured we'd be back by 1AM at the latest. Right? WRONG. Trip was going awesome until a douchebag semi decided to spin out and block the PA Turnpike heading east. We sat in traffic for like 3 hours before they finally rerouted everyone down some back ass roads that added like an extra hour or so onto our trip. I venture to say it was actually worse than our actual trip GETTING there, which is saying something. I am also 90% sure I was asleep behind the wheel for most of that.
On the bright side, though, before disaster struck, we did record the first edition of Lindsay's Podcast Super Awesome Go Time, which is going to basically be me and her geeking out over nerdy shit that we love and recording it. [totally check the shit out of it cause it's awesome]
Urgh, why do I feel like I'm forgetting something?