AWA 2K3 - Friday

Q: What happened to last year’s report, yo?

A: That’s the question that I get asked all of the time. The bottom line is this- I waited TOO long to begin writing it up, and I really didn’t take too good of notes over the course of the weekend. Alas and alack, that meant that I never really got that report off of the ground. However, for those of you that are really interested in what went down, I can give you a brief, all-inclusive rundown of the weekend.

Black Mage Psycho Mantis Snaaaaaaaake Jaegermeister Leather Pants RPG Marle Lucca Aimless Wandering AnimationHQ Lunch Drunk Dialing Patio Retirement Cornbread
LESBIAN PARTY
Topless Tips Fanboys Escort
Old Dirty Bastards
Cross Dressers Trigun Toonami Fujikoma Ichiban Crush
Gaming Stalemates Gay Ryu
Raph Michelle Conglomerate DDR Ian Leo Josh Charles Jason Vodka Ruby Tuesdays Questions Human Worth Candy Apples Bodyguard False Bedtimes Crappy Rave Wake Ups Food
Old Friends New Faces
Cat Skanks Cat Man Whores Miscommunications Silence.

Q: Having looked at that list, one thing in particular really stands out… retirement? What’s up with that? \

A: Ah, how very observant of you… as of last year, I have decided to retire both the Psycho Mantis and the Black Mage costumes. They have served me well, and I feel that it is time that they are allowed to rest!

Holy crap, I met a lot of people today. And I actually remember a few of them. Not a problem, I’ve got a whole weekend to figure out who’s who. I’ve just been informed that I’m responsible for organizing the AHQ room party, which is both an honor and a pain (a painful honor? Perhaps.). An honor since I get to flex my planning muscle (and also since I found out I can solicit tips! Whoo doggy!), and a pain since it seems that I’ll be checking ID’s and whatnot. Also a pain is the fact that if it sucks, I’ll get the blame. Such is the cost of getting the hotel room in my name. And in hindsight, I should have gotten that copy of Playboy’s Bartending Guide that was on sale at B. Dalton. Ah well, I guess I’ll just have to make stuff up then.

Good news- Café Press didn’t screw me two years running, and I actually got the shirts I ordered today! So now I have a golf-tee with the Club Ninja logo, along with the long-sleeved Anti-Fanboy deal. Note to self: Stick with larges in the future. The golf shirt fits me well, but the other one’s a bit snug. There is such a thing as fitting too well, I suppose. Fear my whorish presence.

This year’s hotel is quite nice. It brings back memories of the Ravinia a few years back, but it reminds me of the Dragon*Con setup more so. Will we return to this hotel? As long as no one pisses in the stairwell, I suppose. But the weekend is just beginning. Only time will tell what goes on here at the Con. Let the report begin.

Random Quote: “Take some acid, and run into a wall head-first about six times… that’s the same thing you’ll get from watching FLCL.” – Random guy I was conversing with Friday evening.

Aside from the Ravinia (which we KNEW we weren’t coming back to), this is definitely the nicest hotel we’ve been in since I’ve been attending. The entrance atrium was freaking massive, people were already starting to gather, and I had already spied the hotel bar off to the right. Oh yeah, this is going to be an interesting year.

Also spied was a horrendously huge banner hanging from one of the lower floors of an Eva unit, advertising the supposed all-anime network that’s supposed to be materializing sometime in the near future. Before the weekend was done, I had already talked to about three different people that were planning on stealing it. Good luck being inconspicuous on that one, lads and lasses.

The first order of business was to secure the hotel room. We had arrived right about noon, but of course check-in wasn’t until three. Not wanting to lug around my bags filled with clothes, videogaming implements, and sketchpads, I opted to use my patented Mani-Charm and see if the room was available.

Q: Mani-Charm? What the hell is that?

A: Mani-Charm is quite simple, actually. It’s equal parts smiling like a jackass, and acting somewhat oblivious to the situation at hand. Observe from this excerpt of a conversation with the receptionist at the hotel.

[Despite the fact that I asked one of the ladies there when we were picking up our badges last night, and knew damn well that it was at three. At this point, cue the big goofy smile, and the slight look of confusion in the eyes]

Smiling Receptionist: “… but I can check to see if your room’s ready!”

I procure the four room keys for our private spot amongst the festivities, and proceed to track down Stan, who asks if I can stash his stuff upstairs, while he takes his camera and tracks down a couple of early costumers. I agree, and it’s off to room 1125!

Q: Who the hell’s Stan, yo?

A: Ah yes, well I suppose some introductions are in order… here’s this year’s room-crew.

Stan: Hailing from the frozen northern lands known as Ohio, Stan is one of the online members of the Animation HQ community, who opted to make the trip down to attend our humble convention. The man is an absolute Slayers whore. I kid you not here, that dude’s forgotten more about that series than twelve devotedly psycho-otaku combined. He was in need of a place to stay, and seeing as I needed one more body for our room, Kris opted to stick him in with us.

Quote: “How many Saiyans does it take to change a light bulb? One, but it takes him five episodes to do it.”

Jeremy: Our resident street racing fanatic, he, Kris and I went to high school together back in the day. We hung out a good bit late night at last year’s Con (tales of his drunkenness are a bit of a local legend around these parts), and he was one of the first people to express desire to room with me this time around. Unfortunately he ended up getting somewhat screwed with hours at work beforehand and had to bail, but he was still out and about over the course of the weekend. Much more sober this time around, but still just as funny.

Quote: "That's like, the gateway sex, man! First she'll ask you to do that, and the next thing you know, she'll be wanting to take a dump on your chest!"

Ben: Another friend that I met through Kris some years ago, Ben’s one cool martial arts studying, sake drinking, Japanese speaking mofo. He kinda puts me in the mind of Seth Gecko (George Clooney’s character in From Dusk ‘til Dawn), but is not nearly as trigger-happy. He also got screwed at the last minute as far as rooming goes, but he still hung around and helped out with the room party on Saturday night. More mellow than Snoop Dog himself, and incidentally probably owns more alcohol that Ireland.

An odd thing about our room was that it was EXACTLY the same distance to get to it from either side of the elevator, as it was exactly the furthest room away! No short cuts this year, it would seem.

The room itself was very nice to a swine such as myself, and I laid claim to my own bed by dumping all of my worldly possessions upon it. Before I headed back downstairs and into the mouth of the Great Beast that is AWA 9, I opted to check out the connection behind the TV, to see what we’d be dealing with as far as gaming woes this year. Lo and behold, there was the little Piece of Plastic of Doom™ covering the connection.

I knew good and damn well when I brought those things for my 3D Design class a few semesters back that I’d be using them for this day. And what a wonderful day it indeed was. “I’ll deal with you later,” I remarked, heading out the door. Let’s see what AWA’s all about this year.

I head down to where the Dealers’ Room is supposedly located, and who should I run into but the Fujikoma crew. In case you’ve missed any of my earlier con reports (and shame on you for doing so!), Fujikoma’s a group more or less based out of Florida of a couple of dudes that I run into from time to time. Cool mofo’s one and all. Mappy (the unofficial HMFIC) introduces me to the rest of the crew, including a young lady that seemed to be very taken by the badge that had an anime-styled drawing of me on it, done by Robert DeJesus last year. Of course the badge was dangling near my nads, which brought about her infamous response-

After getting a general layout of things in mind, I headed over to the Dealers’ Room. Quite the massive spectacle this year, it seems. Lots of music blasting, folks walking around, and…

Like a moth to a flame, I was drawn to the table of death-dealing implements. I’m here to tell you, they had some of the most obscenely wicked looking blades I’ve seen in quite some time. Not just katanas and the like for the anime-themed-convention, mind you, but several medieval and Lord of the Rings influenced stuff as well. Woe upon any marauding band of mutants looking for trouble at this year’s con, as I’m sure we could have armed every attendee with minimal effort.

I knew at that moment that I’d be leaving the convention with at least one new sword. There was no rush, though. I’ve got the entire weekend to decide on which one.

After wandering about the area a bit, as well as the Galleria area itself to procure lunch (which found the Chinese buffet thoroughly ransacked by con-goers… I opted for Subway instead), I decided to try and locate a few of my usual haunts. First and foremost was the Art Show (which I VOW to enter next year), and then of course, the Videogame Room.

This year’s Videogame Room was actually several, as they had a massive DDR setup in one (with my boy Lank there regulating things), while the other was setup for multi-console warfare. I knew that I’d be spending a lot of time in that room this weekend, simply because of an announcement of a tournament on the AWA website a few weeks prior.

I found the list of entrants, and signed up for the PS2 brackets. Mani is now officially in the tournament, and he’s bringing Raphael to kick some ass.

Q: You use that pantywaist Raphael in Soul Calibur?! HA!!

A: My Raphael is nothing to be taken lightly, heathens. While he lacks the obscene strength of Asteroth, and the sheer pig-butt-nasty brutality of Nightmare, he more than makes up for it with his speed, and sense of STYLE, baby! Not only will I dance around you and slowly pick you apart, I’ll look good doing it, too. And, as near as I could tell, I was the only person using him in the tournament, to boot. I mean, where’s the fun in picking the characters that everyone else uses, hmm?

I decided to wander on upstairs at that point and hook up the PS2 I brought along, so that I could get some practice in before the tournament Saturday. Granted I got a chance to play a bit in the videogame room (along with some good old Streak-Ending), but you know, nothing beats practicing on your own.

Q: Streak-Ending?

A: Geek Gaming Terminology, Streak-Ending. Anyone’s that played games on a consistent basis, especially in the arcade, has witnessed the glory that is Streak-Ending. It comes from when you see someone that’s absolutely beating the crap out of everyone that comes near the console, who, by this point, has built up a nice set of wins (the Streak in question). Streak-Ending is the glorious act of not just witnessing the end of someone’s domination, but being the one that caused it. I ended two streaks that weekend, one at 16, and another at 20. It’s nothing personal against the individual, but the fact that you beat someone that’s been whupping up on everyone else is its own reward.

And what is better than Streak-Ending? To give up the controls afterwards, despite the fact that you haven’t been defeated. J

Anywho, I make my way upstairs to go about the mad hook-up process in order to get the PS2 up and running for the countless hours of gaming that are due to take place over the weekend. I turn the TV around, grab those needle-nosed pliers, and go to work.

I fought with it for a good thirty or so minutes before finally just saying up and screw it. I’m sure someone in the crew knew how to handle those things. Dejected for the time being, however, I leave the room and head back to the mass of humanity downstairs. And to the bar, because if that didn’t warrant the need for a drink, then dammit, I didn’t know what did.

The majority of Friday evening revolved around me wandering around the convention center, attempting to track down friends, deliver badges (I was pretty much put in charge of holding them until everyone arrived), snapping the occasional photo, and begin plotting for Saturday night. What was up for Saturday night, you wonder? Well, as I had been informed a scant 24 hours or so prior, I was officially in charge of Animation HQ’s room party for this year. And if it sucked, then that would be on Mani’s head.

During one such late night wandering, I decided to stop by the videogame room to see what sort of events were going down. As near as I could tell, this year’s videogame room was open 24/7, which meant that if I were ever afflicted by a bout of insomnia, then I knew exactly where I was heading. Especially seeing as I COULD’T HOOK UP THE FREAKING PS2 UPSTAIRS! I AM ASHAMED! I DO NOT DESERVE TO LIVE! *sob*

Well, as I was explaining, I was wandering about the videogame rooms, where I saw that some of the DDR activities were still going strong in one area, and things seemed to be going full swing in the second one as well. As I’m sneaking away, however, I do a double take as I notice a very familiar presence or two. Sneaking up behind the duo, I can confirm the identities of both Dave and Snead!

Q: Dave and Snead?

A: Dave and Snead. Friends of Galen’s that I met at AWA a couple of years ago. Both are two of the most insanely cool mofos to ever live, and played a major role in the preservation of my sanity over the course of the weekend.

We all hang out a bit and eventually head up to chill in the room, where we run into both Ben and Stan on two separate occasions. Eventually Stan heads off to karaoke to sing the Menche Song (seeing the look on Snead’s face as this was announced was priceless), which leaves the four of us to our own devices. After Snead and Dave take a moment to preach out of The Book of Slayers (the running joke was that Stan was holding the manga like a bible as he was explaining some points earlier that evening), we decide to wander off some more and find something going on.

Q: Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA! "Preaching from The Book of Slayers??"

A: You really had to see it to believe it. Basically, imagine Snead taking the manga and explaining excerpts from it like a southern Baptist preacher, with Dave and I backing him up as the congregation. I truly wish we had a recording of that, because hearing Snead preach about The Dragon Slave (Dave: “The Dragon Slaaaaaaaaaaaaaave!”) was worth the price of admission to AWA by itself. "And Naga said unto Lina, where has my foooood gone?"

The four of us eventually wander over to a party that Chris (one of our Animation HQ buds) was a part. More specifically it was a room party for Mind Warp Entertainment, but after professing our love to their AMV’s, we were part of the crew.

In the midst of pillaging the room of food, booze, and women, we pause for a photo op.
(Me, Carlos of Mind Warp Entertainment, Snead, Dave, and Ben)

[Random Sidenote: For whatever reason, whenever Snead set foot into a room party with the earpiece from his cell phone in, everyone inside would get VERY quiet. Snead’s a big dude, so it was easy to mistake him for security.]

Eventually things wind down for the evening, with Dave and Snead heading off, along with Ben. But they had all agreed to help me out with the preparations for the room party that was to take place Saturday night.