|
Otakon
2003 taught me that my place in life is as a professional
hanger-on. You know, one of those guys who makes up an entourage,
whose point in life is to soak up the excess fame of those
they hang around, like that Guy
Ritchie who proved Madonna's fame is sexually transmitted.
I just wanted to say that so this article will have a bit
of educational value ... and now we move on.
Thursday
This was my first time to
drive a major road trip, so I was a bit nervous of involving
us all in fiery death and thus delaying updates to this
site even further. We all made it down to the hellhole known
as Baltimore in one piece, but apparently I drive too slowly
in the left lane (ed note: true), but if 85 mph is slow
then I don't want to know what's fast, dammit. Unlike last
year's con, we were prepared this time food-wise--and by
prepared, I mean prepared to live underground in Baltimore
and live off our stash for five years to come out 20 pounds
heavier. Since Baltimore has no food (see below), always
remember to bring your own.
As for the pre-reg line, here's
a quick random fact for you: a city block is one kilometer
long, and half of the Baltimore Convention Center takes
up one city block. The line, at its peak, circled half the
convention center. For the un-mathematically inclined that
means the line was 4 kilometers long, or, using the correct
SI system of measurement, 2.4 miles. A 2.4 mile long
line of otaku--and only the otaku who pre-reged, and
only the otaku who pre-reged and wanted to get their tickets
a day in advance. Yah, this con is pretty big.
That evening we went for a
quick trip around the Inner Harbor, but you know what? THERE
WAS NOTHING OPEN! I ask you this--how does a CVS or
McDonald's propose to get money when they close at 8 o'clock
at night? The famous Afghan
Kabob had a sign saying that, due to the nocturnal otaku
in town, they were going to stay open until 10. Ah, Afghan
Kabob ... they are truly kings among men.
To sum up, Baltimore is a
city populated by reverse vampires. We're
through the looking glass, people.
Friday
I cosplayed this year. Not
that it was a good cosplay, by any means--if this was a
school pageant, I would win the "made without parental
involvement" award they give to the kid whose parents
are drunks. Nevertheless, I was cosplaying as Remiel. For
those of you without a photographic memory, Remiel was the
5th Angel from Evangelion (the 3rd Angel to appear in the
show) and was the giant geometric shape that almost destroyed
NERV HQ. Of course, most people thought I was some sort
of abstract performance art piece, and while one person
approached me to say how cool I was and to request a picture,
most simply asked what the hell I was. I also got my ass
kicked by a Shinji cosplayer who was also an amazing artist
and from whom I bought an awesome picture of Kensuke in
the plug suit his dad made him. (Ed note: This artist, named
Sarah, is also one of the cutest people ever to exist.)
This year, the big thing for
us was Artists Ally. Sure, the Dealers Room kicked so much
ass that it ran out of ass and had to settle with kicking
torso, but you can get any of that stuff online if you look.
Artists Ally, however, gives you access to amazing talent
who will draw in exchange for a few dollars or some peanuts
you found on the floor. I picked up some FLCL
doujinshi, some random pins, and the newest issue of
my favorite
pretentious fanzine. The editor actually tried to convince
me that Wolf's
Rain is a fantastic show, giving me arguments such as
"it's not about the goal, it's about the journey"
and "it's a symbolic representation of the human desire
for freedom." I countered by saying it's about four
angsting bishounen,
walking places and angsting about it.
Not that I didn't go to the
Dealers Room; things, after all, make life complete. I picked
up two new Pillows
albums, at an average price of about 3 dollars a song ...
but the Pillows simply make life better, that's all there
is to it. A Nami
plushie now joins me in bed every night. I also came closer
to my goal of having an entire wardrobe of witty and/or
anime-related
tee-shits by buying a Little
Gamers tee as well as a FLCL
one.
While I enjoyed being an official
Tokyopop
booth babe last year, the varied responsibilities of being
eye candy prevented me from going to any of the cool Otakon
happenings. This year I actually got to go to things--and
the MST3K was amazing. For those of you who don't know,
the event is basically watching bad movies and having robots
make fun of them. It's like what we do at home, but with
robots, and they are smaller, more efficient, and better
at killing then we. After MST3K there were the anime music
videos, which are too cool to describe. They make me wish
I had talent and such; though I should note the entire Sleep
is for the Weak team plans on combining efforts (much as
how the Planeteers combine their powers) to create a masterpiece
tentatively called "Tamahome
Being Hurt to Popular Music."
We then slept, as we are
very weak.
|
