Project: A-kon 16 Report
Yeah, so I haven't written in just about forever. Truth is, I've been so busy with school and IB, I really haven't had much time for my animanga and gaming fandom during this past school year. However, it's summer now, and summer means catching up on everything I've missed out on. XD I rented and beat Suikoden IV in five days and have also been enjoying a bootlegged free trial of Ragnarok Online. Other than that, not much happened this past year. I didn't get to buy much manga, nor did I discover any new animes that I'm thrilled about. I did buy the PS2 HDD like I said I might in my last entry, and I've decided that all my graduation money will probably be going toward buying a PS3 because it's pretty much the sexiest thing alive. The PSP's damn sexy as well, but it is horridly expensive, and I don't think I'd use it very much. I'm just not a portable game device person anymore. But the PS3... *drool* Now that will definitely be worth every cent.
Anyway, my main purpose for writing this entry is to report on Project: A-kon 16, which was not this past weekend but the weekend before... June 3-5, 2005. Anyway, yes: after 2-3 years of wanting to go, I finally got to go to an anime convention... and Project: A-kon, no less. ^_^ (A-kon is one of the oldest and largest cons in the entire US!)
I had to go with my dad, though, because if I'd gone by myself, I would've had to pay for everything myself... registration, food, hotel reservation, etc. As a high school student with no time for a job, I simply couldn't have afforded it. =[ Next year, I definitely hope to get a group of friends together so we can split the cost of hotel reservation and gas and stuff... because, after this weekend's experiences, though I did have a blast, I *never* want to go to a Con with my dad EVER again.
We left for Dallas fairly early Friday morning and drove straight there for three and a half hours. Dad had a conference call, and I just listened to Jpop to get in the mood. Once there, we parked at the Adam's Mark parking garage (big mistake... fucking expensive) and went straight to the Con, where we picked up our badges and goodie bags at the Pre-Registration table. We checked out the first floor and photographed a few cosplayers, and since it was practically 1 PM by that time, we went to the third floor, which had most of the panel rooms, to attend a panel called Cosplay 101. I'd been intending to cosplay at this Con, but I'd commissioned someone to do my costume and it wasn't done in time!! I would love to make my own costumes, but I just don't have that sort of time. :[ Probably not until college, anyway, and who knows then. o_O But anywho, the panel was very fun; the panelists were awesome. After that, we went to the second floor, where we went into the Dealer's Room in search of something to eat for lunch. We saw a hell of a lot of stuff (almost right away, I spent all my money to buy me a Naruto! headband) and a lot of nifty cosplayers, but there really wasn't anything to eat, so we ended up going to Subway instead. After that, we went back to the car and drove to the hotel (we were staying at the Hyatt, not the Adam's Mark, because dad found the latter too expensive), where we checked in to our room, and I changed. (I wanted to wear my RK shirt to the concert that night, but since it's 100% polyester, which smells when you sweat, I hadn't wanted to wear it in the car for that long drive.)
After that, we used the metro to return to the Con, where we photographed even more cosplayers and basically just walked around and checked everything out. At 5:30 PM, we got in line for the seating for the welcoming ceremonies, since we wanted good seats for the concert that would follow right afterwards. The welcoming ceremony was hilarious... they started with a Lion King spoof, and then the Red VS. Blue people had made a special video to explain the Con rules. XD It was absolutely hilarious. Anyway, not much else to say about the welcoming ceremony, so... flash forward to the concert!
A Jrock band called ;ZZ; opened the concert. Now, I'm going to bluntly generalize and say I hate almost all Jrock (guys dressed up like girls and with voices like bad karaoke singers screaming into microphones just isn't music to me), but these guys were damn good, and they really got us moving! It pissed me off though, because there were a few guys around me who seemed to hate their music, and they booed and everything and wouldn't move to the music... except we were like in the 5th or 6th row from the stage! >:/ I mean, if you hate it so much, just don't come, or at least take up space in one of the front rows. That was pretty dumb. So anyway, I thought ;ZZ; was surprisingly good and will definitely be checking out more of their music in the future. Problem was, though, dad and I hadn't eaten dinner before because we'd had lunch so late, and by now it was already like 10 PM or so. One of the only places still open was the overpriced hotel restaurant, so we ended up having to eat there. I just got an appetizer, ate and drank, and headed back to the concert, where Kumiko Kato was just about to begin her performance. She was pretty good, too, but her style of music just didn't appeal much to me. She has a nice voice, but her songs are too Britney Spears'ish (what Britney was like BEFORE she turned all shitty), too much trying to be like what BoA was about three years ago. Still, she put on a good show, and because she's so pretty, a lot of the guys enjoyed it, even if no one cared much about the style of her music.
Last up was A-kon's headline musical guest, the two original members of the Jpop group dream. They, too, put on an excellent show... they got almost everyone to dance to "Night of Fire", and their most popular song was definitely "My Will", the ending song to InuYasha (which I hated, because I hate InuYasha). When they were done, nobody wanted them to leave... the audience screamed for an encore, so they came back and performed "Night of Fire" one more time. =]
After that, there was a brief break in which they set up the room for the dance, where DJ BOSS, one of Japan's top Eurobeat DJs, would be DJing. I thought the dance would be a lot of fun and had looked forward to it all day, but dad totally ended up ruining it for me. At first, he insisted on standing two feet away the entire time I was trying to dance. I'm not going to get my groove on if my dad's standing two feet away, hell-o! >:/ After like forty minutes, he FINALLY got idea and went to sit down, and I tried to dance for a while, but I'd stuffed all the stuff I'd gotten that day into my Pucca bag, so it was heavy, and the strap was starting to majorly cut into my shoulder. Dad wouldn't hold my bag, so I had to try to dance with it on. That didn't end up working out at all. So, in the end, I just gave up and sat down, figuring that dad would get the message and we could go back to the hotel. I was freaking tired. Well, no. For whatever reason, that 50-year-old loser insisted on staying at the dance, even though all he was doing was sitting and tapping his foot and looking around. And I kept waiting, but he wouldn't leave! So finally I just went to the video room and watched Fushigi Yuugi and other random anime episodes while waiting for dad to leave... which wasn't until like 2 or 3 AM, by which time metro wasn't even running anymore. We had to wait for a taxi and didn't get back to the hotel until reeeaaallly late, and I was obviously very pissed at dad. -.-
The next morning, we didn't actually have to get up early, but the previous guest had set the alarm clock for like 5:30 AM, and dad hadn't turned it off. -____- And when it went off, dad just kept hitting Snooze instead of totally shutting it off. So, by about 6, we were both wide awake. We got dressed and had breakfast in the hotel. Then we returned to the Con by metro. We walked around and took pictures for quite a while. The first panel I went to was a Computer Animation Seminar, which was sort-of misnamed because it was basically just a demo of LightWave 3D and a shout-out to the DAVE School. The panel was two hours long, but I only stayed for the first hour, after which I went to the Red VS. Blue panel, which was a blast. Afterwards, they announced they'd be signing autographs at their booth downstairs, so I headed to the first floor and waited for forever to get autographs for Imran and Rock. But, I did. Pretty sure I'm the most awesome friend ever. ^_~
After that, I went back up to the same room for ;ZZ;'s panel, which was funny as well. (And their guitarist, Kohsuke, is very hot. @_@ I don't often think Japanese guys are that good-looking, but damn... he was fine!) After the ;ZZ; panel, I went to the third floor for a 4-hour Cel Painting Class, hosted by Steve Bennett, an actual Japanese-American animator! He started off by giving a one-hour lecture on patience and discipline, and he explained about the different types of artists (I am DEFINITELY a Type B Artist.. so true)... so it was kind of tedious having to sit there and listen to him talk before we could do anything, but his lecture turned out to be very motivating and empowering, so the panel was worth it for the lecture alone. So by the time he was finished talking, I would've been okay with just leaving after that, but I actually got to learn how to paint a cel, so that was way cool. :D Since you do everything upside-down, I really had to reverse my thinking, and my cel didn't turn out all that great, but it was a great learning experience.
After that, my dad text messaged me, so I hurried downstairs and we went to eat dinner at the Plaza of the Americas mall nearby. The problem with downtown Dallas is that there's almost no place to eat, and even the mall closes incredibly early, but luckily a few stores had stayed open "late" (it was only about 5 PM) especially for the Con. So, we ate pizza and then hurried back to the Con for the seating for the cosplay contest. Though we were at the front of the line, we got pretty bad seats (all the way to the side). Anyway, the contest started with a pre-show performance by Kumiko Kato. However, she performed the exact same five songs from the day before, so that was pretty lame. Anyway, the cosplay turned out to be hilarious... I loved the skits. It almost made me want to go up there and do one too, but I'm just not a stage person. XD There were some great walk-on costumes as well. The halftime show by the Bujinkan Tanemaki Dojo was pretty gay. They gave out a bunch of awards, and then there was yet another dance, this one hosted by Radio Free Oz (RFO), who specialized in anime and video game theme songs (and some Eurobeat as well).
Again, I wanted to dance, but my dad was there... He actually offered to hold my bag so I could dance this time, but I just told him, "I'm not going to dance if YOU're in the room." I just didn't want him to be there at all. So you'd figure my dad might get the picture and go somewhere else... but, nooo! Instead of leaving, he just went to stand at the edge of the dance floor to watch the ravers. Well, I was serious about what I said; as much as I wanted to dance, I just wasn't going to bother if he was in the room. So, I went to sit down at the side of the room... and I was obviously upset.
I'd only been sitting for about ten minutes when a guy suddenly came up out of nowhere and asked, "Hey, are you all right? You look kind of down." I had no idea who he was -- I hadn't seen him before -- but I was touched by his sympathy. Still, I wasn't about to burden a complete stranger with my petty personal problems (I'm just not the dramatic type), so I lied and told him, "No, I'm fine," and he walked off to watch the people dancing. Still, he was never far away... he stood watching from about four or five yards away. Occasionally, he'd walk off and disappear, but he'd always return and check up on me from a distance. Finally, after about an hour or two, he walked up again and said, "Well, I hope you feel better later," and left the ballroom. Shortly after, my dad finally got bored with watching the dancers, and we left, too.
Sunday morning, we got up pretty damn early because dad didn't want to eat breakfast at the hotel again because it had been so expensive. So, we drove all over town trying to find a decent place to have breakfast. However, everything turned out to be closed, or didn't really serve a good breakfast. Dallas is really lame. Anyway, we ended up having breakfast at the Adam's Mark, which turned out to be even MORE expensive. Then it was off to the Con again, for the final time. I'd been hoping to do a lot more panels that day, but after the occurrence the night before, I really wanted to find that guy from before so I could thank him for his kindness and apologize to him for seeming rude and/or arrogant, explaining that I just didn't want to burden a stranger with my petty personal problems. (I'm really a sucker for anyone who shows me a grain of sympathy when I'm down.) So, as soon as we got to the Adam's Mark, I ditched my dad, telling him to meet me at the Jpop Room at 4 PM. Then I spent a long time walking around the Dealer's Room and some of the other booths, looking for that guy. I also spent quite a bit of time in the 24-hr Game Room.. originally I only went in to see if the guy was there, but then I discovered they were letting you play FFXI for free, so I did and got quite caught up in that. I must say.. damn, that game is addictive. Now I understand why people are actually willing to fork over $13 a month to play that. I also got to sample GT4... *drool* @_@
Still, there was no sign of the guy, so at noon, I went to a fanfiction-writing panel, Fanfiction 101. It was just basic stuff... we went over fanfiction terminology, story ideas, and talked a lot about commenting and flamers on FF.net. At 1 PM, I'd been intending to go to a panel called "Making Video Games from Intellectual Properties"... not sure exactly what that implied, but it sounded like something up my alley. But, the panelists of the fanfiction panel turned out to be so friendly and so much fun, I decided to stay for another hour for their Fanfiction 201 panel. This panel was a lot more geared toward actual story editing, how to overcome writer's block, answering questions, etc. Somebody else asked my one question, so I basically just sat there and listened, but I had a good time anyway. They were just so nice. The lady, BlackRose, kept looking at me while she was talking, and at one point, as she walked back, she said, "You look so cute!" Not that she was trying to hit on me or anything, and I obviously wasn't cosplaying (unless you count my Naruto! headband that I faithfully wore all weekend)... it was kind of in a tone of voice that said she wasn't sure exactly why she thought I looked cute, but she thought I did anyway. I dunno, I guess I'm just a sucker for anyone who shows me any sort of kindness when I'm by myself. ='3
After the second hour, I left and continued my search for That Guy (I called him that or "Mr. Nice" in my head). Went back into the Dealer's Room and everything. I had exactly $3 left, and one booth was selling bishounen pins for exactly $3, so I bought one of Vash. <3 (They didn't have Van or Kenshin or Aoshi. *sniff*) Walked around even more, and finally just crashed and watched music videos in the Jpop Room. I was sooo tired. I stayed there until dad came around 3:30 PM, and then we left. We got our car and drove off, waving bye-bye to A-kon. =[
So, it was definitely one of the best weekends of my life, minus those few times when dad seriously pissed me off. I only have a few regrets. 1) Having been sort of fed up with a lot of my current friends, I was really hoping to make a lot of new friends at the Con, but didn't end up doing so. You just don't get any attention if you're not cosplaying, and that's that.. So, 2) I also really regret not cosplaying. Which really isn't my fault, just my costume wasn't done when it was supposed to be. But I will definitely cosplay next time! 3) I really wish I'd found That Guy. I wanted to thank and apologize to him so badly. =/
Well, that's about it. I'm already planning out stuff for Project: A-kon 17, and I made a humongous photo gallery of pictures dad and I took. And now that I've finally finished my report, I'm tired... so, I'm out!
Anyway, my main purpose for writing this entry is to report on Project: A-kon 16, which was not this past weekend but the weekend before... June 3-5, 2005. Anyway, yes: after 2-3 years of wanting to go, I finally got to go to an anime convention... and Project: A-kon, no less. ^_^ (A-kon is one of the oldest and largest cons in the entire US!)
I had to go with my dad, though, because if I'd gone by myself, I would've had to pay for everything myself... registration, food, hotel reservation, etc. As a high school student with no time for a job, I simply couldn't have afforded it. =[ Next year, I definitely hope to get a group of friends together so we can split the cost of hotel reservation and gas and stuff... because, after this weekend's experiences, though I did have a blast, I *never* want to go to a Con with my dad EVER again.
We left for Dallas fairly early Friday morning and drove straight there for three and a half hours. Dad had a conference call, and I just listened to Jpop to get in the mood. Once there, we parked at the Adam's Mark parking garage (big mistake... fucking expensive) and went straight to the Con, where we picked up our badges and goodie bags at the Pre-Registration table. We checked out the first floor and photographed a few cosplayers, and since it was practically 1 PM by that time, we went to the third floor, which had most of the panel rooms, to attend a panel called Cosplay 101. I'd been intending to cosplay at this Con, but I'd commissioned someone to do my costume and it wasn't done in time!! I would love to make my own costumes, but I just don't have that sort of time. :[ Probably not until college, anyway, and who knows then. o_O But anywho, the panel was very fun; the panelists were awesome. After that, we went to the second floor, where we went into the Dealer's Room in search of something to eat for lunch. We saw a hell of a lot of stuff (almost right away, I spent all my money to buy me a Naruto! headband) and a lot of nifty cosplayers, but there really wasn't anything to eat, so we ended up going to Subway instead. After that, we went back to the car and drove to the hotel (we were staying at the Hyatt, not the Adam's Mark, because dad found the latter too expensive), where we checked in to our room, and I changed. (I wanted to wear my RK shirt to the concert that night, but since it's 100% polyester, which smells when you sweat, I hadn't wanted to wear it in the car for that long drive.)
After that, we used the metro to return to the Con, where we photographed even more cosplayers and basically just walked around and checked everything out. At 5:30 PM, we got in line for the seating for the welcoming ceremonies, since we wanted good seats for the concert that would follow right afterwards. The welcoming ceremony was hilarious... they started with a Lion King spoof, and then the Red VS. Blue people had made a special video to explain the Con rules. XD It was absolutely hilarious. Anyway, not much else to say about the welcoming ceremony, so... flash forward to the concert!
A Jrock band called ;ZZ; opened the concert. Now, I'm going to bluntly generalize and say I hate almost all Jrock (guys dressed up like girls and with voices like bad karaoke singers screaming into microphones just isn't music to me), but these guys were damn good, and they really got us moving! It pissed me off though, because there were a few guys around me who seemed to hate their music, and they booed and everything and wouldn't move to the music... except we were like in the 5th or 6th row from the stage! >:/ I mean, if you hate it so much, just don't come, or at least take up space in one of the front rows. That was pretty dumb. So anyway, I thought ;ZZ; was surprisingly good and will definitely be checking out more of their music in the future. Problem was, though, dad and I hadn't eaten dinner before because we'd had lunch so late, and by now it was already like 10 PM or so. One of the only places still open was the overpriced hotel restaurant, so we ended up having to eat there. I just got an appetizer, ate and drank, and headed back to the concert, where Kumiko Kato was just about to begin her performance. She was pretty good, too, but her style of music just didn't appeal much to me. She has a nice voice, but her songs are too Britney Spears'ish (what Britney was like BEFORE she turned all shitty), too much trying to be like what BoA was about three years ago. Still, she put on a good show, and because she's so pretty, a lot of the guys enjoyed it, even if no one cared much about the style of her music.
Last up was A-kon's headline musical guest, the two original members of the Jpop group dream. They, too, put on an excellent show... they got almost everyone to dance to "Night of Fire", and their most popular song was definitely "My Will", the ending song to InuYasha (which I hated, because I hate InuYasha). When they were done, nobody wanted them to leave... the audience screamed for an encore, so they came back and performed "Night of Fire" one more time. =]
After that, there was a brief break in which they set up the room for the dance, where DJ BOSS, one of Japan's top Eurobeat DJs, would be DJing. I thought the dance would be a lot of fun and had looked forward to it all day, but dad totally ended up ruining it for me. At first, he insisted on standing two feet away the entire time I was trying to dance. I'm not going to get my groove on if my dad's standing two feet away, hell-o! >:/ After like forty minutes, he FINALLY got idea and went to sit down, and I tried to dance for a while, but I'd stuffed all the stuff I'd gotten that day into my Pucca bag, so it was heavy, and the strap was starting to majorly cut into my shoulder. Dad wouldn't hold my bag, so I had to try to dance with it on. That didn't end up working out at all. So, in the end, I just gave up and sat down, figuring that dad would get the message and we could go back to the hotel. I was freaking tired. Well, no. For whatever reason, that 50-year-old loser insisted on staying at the dance, even though all he was doing was sitting and tapping his foot and looking around. And I kept waiting, but he wouldn't leave! So finally I just went to the video room and watched Fushigi Yuugi and other random anime episodes while waiting for dad to leave... which wasn't until like 2 or 3 AM, by which time metro wasn't even running anymore. We had to wait for a taxi and didn't get back to the hotel until reeeaaallly late, and I was obviously very pissed at dad. -.-
The next morning, we didn't actually have to get up early, but the previous guest had set the alarm clock for like 5:30 AM, and dad hadn't turned it off. -____- And when it went off, dad just kept hitting Snooze instead of totally shutting it off. So, by about 6, we were both wide awake. We got dressed and had breakfast in the hotel. Then we returned to the Con by metro. We walked around and took pictures for quite a while. The first panel I went to was a Computer Animation Seminar, which was sort-of misnamed because it was basically just a demo of LightWave 3D and a shout-out to the DAVE School. The panel was two hours long, but I only stayed for the first hour, after which I went to the Red VS. Blue panel, which was a blast. Afterwards, they announced they'd be signing autographs at their booth downstairs, so I headed to the first floor and waited for forever to get autographs for Imran and Rock. But, I did. Pretty sure I'm the most awesome friend ever. ^_~
After that, I went back up to the same room for ;ZZ;'s panel, which was funny as well. (And their guitarist, Kohsuke, is very hot. @_@ I don't often think Japanese guys are that good-looking, but damn... he was fine!) After the ;ZZ; panel, I went to the third floor for a 4-hour Cel Painting Class, hosted by Steve Bennett, an actual Japanese-American animator! He started off by giving a one-hour lecture on patience and discipline, and he explained about the different types of artists (I am DEFINITELY a Type B Artist.. so true)... so it was kind of tedious having to sit there and listen to him talk before we could do anything, but his lecture turned out to be very motivating and empowering, so the panel was worth it for the lecture alone. So by the time he was finished talking, I would've been okay with just leaving after that, but I actually got to learn how to paint a cel, so that was way cool. :D Since you do everything upside-down, I really had to reverse my thinking, and my cel didn't turn out all that great, but it was a great learning experience.
After that, my dad text messaged me, so I hurried downstairs and we went to eat dinner at the Plaza of the Americas mall nearby. The problem with downtown Dallas is that there's almost no place to eat, and even the mall closes incredibly early, but luckily a few stores had stayed open "late" (it was only about 5 PM) especially for the Con. So, we ate pizza and then hurried back to the Con for the seating for the cosplay contest. Though we were at the front of the line, we got pretty bad seats (all the way to the side). Anyway, the contest started with a pre-show performance by Kumiko Kato. However, she performed the exact same five songs from the day before, so that was pretty lame. Anyway, the cosplay turned out to be hilarious... I loved the skits. It almost made me want to go up there and do one too, but I'm just not a stage person. XD There were some great walk-on costumes as well. The halftime show by the Bujinkan Tanemaki Dojo was pretty gay. They gave out a bunch of awards, and then there was yet another dance, this one hosted by Radio Free Oz (RFO), who specialized in anime and video game theme songs (and some Eurobeat as well).
Again, I wanted to dance, but my dad was there... He actually offered to hold my bag so I could dance this time, but I just told him, "I'm not going to dance if YOU're in the room." I just didn't want him to be there at all. So you'd figure my dad might get the picture and go somewhere else... but, nooo! Instead of leaving, he just went to stand at the edge of the dance floor to watch the ravers. Well, I was serious about what I said; as much as I wanted to dance, I just wasn't going to bother if he was in the room. So, I went to sit down at the side of the room... and I was obviously upset.
I'd only been sitting for about ten minutes when a guy suddenly came up out of nowhere and asked, "Hey, are you all right? You look kind of down." I had no idea who he was -- I hadn't seen him before -- but I was touched by his sympathy. Still, I wasn't about to burden a complete stranger with my petty personal problems (I'm just not the dramatic type), so I lied and told him, "No, I'm fine," and he walked off to watch the people dancing. Still, he was never far away... he stood watching from about four or five yards away. Occasionally, he'd walk off and disappear, but he'd always return and check up on me from a distance. Finally, after about an hour or two, he walked up again and said, "Well, I hope you feel better later," and left the ballroom. Shortly after, my dad finally got bored with watching the dancers, and we left, too.
Sunday morning, we got up pretty damn early because dad didn't want to eat breakfast at the hotel again because it had been so expensive. So, we drove all over town trying to find a decent place to have breakfast. However, everything turned out to be closed, or didn't really serve a good breakfast. Dallas is really lame. Anyway, we ended up having breakfast at the Adam's Mark, which turned out to be even MORE expensive. Then it was off to the Con again, for the final time. I'd been hoping to do a lot more panels that day, but after the occurrence the night before, I really wanted to find that guy from before so I could thank him for his kindness and apologize to him for seeming rude and/or arrogant, explaining that I just didn't want to burden a stranger with my petty personal problems. (I'm really a sucker for anyone who shows me a grain of sympathy when I'm down.) So, as soon as we got to the Adam's Mark, I ditched my dad, telling him to meet me at the Jpop Room at 4 PM. Then I spent a long time walking around the Dealer's Room and some of the other booths, looking for that guy. I also spent quite a bit of time in the 24-hr Game Room.. originally I only went in to see if the guy was there, but then I discovered they were letting you play FFXI for free, so I did and got quite caught up in that. I must say.. damn, that game is addictive. Now I understand why people are actually willing to fork over $13 a month to play that. I also got to sample GT4... *drool* @_@
Still, there was no sign of the guy, so at noon, I went to a fanfiction-writing panel, Fanfiction 101. It was just basic stuff... we went over fanfiction terminology, story ideas, and talked a lot about commenting and flamers on FF.net. At 1 PM, I'd been intending to go to a panel called "Making Video Games from Intellectual Properties"... not sure exactly what that implied, but it sounded like something up my alley. But, the panelists of the fanfiction panel turned out to be so friendly and so much fun, I decided to stay for another hour for their Fanfiction 201 panel. This panel was a lot more geared toward actual story editing, how to overcome writer's block, answering questions, etc. Somebody else asked my one question, so I basically just sat there and listened, but I had a good time anyway. They were just so nice. The lady, BlackRose, kept looking at me while she was talking, and at one point, as she walked back, she said, "You look so cute!" Not that she was trying to hit on me or anything, and I obviously wasn't cosplaying (unless you count my Naruto! headband that I faithfully wore all weekend)... it was kind of in a tone of voice that said she wasn't sure exactly why she thought I looked cute, but she thought I did anyway. I dunno, I guess I'm just a sucker for anyone who shows me any sort of kindness when I'm by myself. ='3
After the second hour, I left and continued my search for That Guy (I called him that or "Mr. Nice" in my head). Went back into the Dealer's Room and everything. I had exactly $3 left, and one booth was selling bishounen pins for exactly $3, so I bought one of Vash. <3 (They didn't have Van or Kenshin or Aoshi. *sniff*) Walked around even more, and finally just crashed and watched music videos in the Jpop Room. I was sooo tired. I stayed there until dad came around 3:30 PM, and then we left. We got our car and drove off, waving bye-bye to A-kon. =[
So, it was definitely one of the best weekends of my life, minus those few times when dad seriously pissed me off. I only have a few regrets. 1) Having been sort of fed up with a lot of my current friends, I was really hoping to make a lot of new friends at the Con, but didn't end up doing so. You just don't get any attention if you're not cosplaying, and that's that.. So, 2) I also really regret not cosplaying. Which really isn't my fault, just my costume wasn't done when it was supposed to be. But I will definitely cosplay next time! 3) I really wish I'd found That Guy. I wanted to thank and apologize to him so badly. =/
Well, that's about it. I'm already planning out stuff for Project: A-kon 17, and I made a humongous photo gallery of pictures dad and I took. And now that I've finally finished my report, I'm tired... so, I'm out!