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At Otakon

baltmatrixbaltmatrix
edited August 2006 in Everything Else
Well today was the day of waiting in line to get the tickets. I have to say that this year my crew (not the FRC) decided that we were not going to wait three hours in line. This year we arrived in line at 4:30pm. About 30 minutes after we got in line I was listening to Tuesday's Geeknights when who came walking towards us; it was none other that Rym and Scott. That was very cool. I got to meet Scott, Rym was busy interviewing people who were wearing very heavy clothing. Yes it was very hot and mostly unpleasant but it was not that bad. However one of my crew did get a little bit of heat stoke. I informed a staff member and they rushed him inside. That was very nice of them (considering that Baltimore is under a heat emergency right now). We got into the building at around 5:30pm.

We got our tickets with no problems. However finding the sickly party member was not that easy. I had to ask 5 different people before someone suggested that I go to Con-Ops, I then had to ask someone where the hell Con-Ops was. We get to con-ops and I had to ask 4 more separate people where we could find our friend. Finally one person knew what the hell was going on. They would only let one person go in to see him. Before anyone said anything I started walking towards the location. I get there and they are performing the usual post emergency service. Lots of water and Gatorade, asking questions and keeping him generally awake. We left in about 15 mins from me getting there. The Otakon staff was nice enough to let him get his ticket with no worries. Then while they waited I ran and got the car. We then went back to my home with no further issues. I do have to say that the emergency staff was excellent and very professional.

More to come tomorrow.


p.s. - Mr. Period, please fix any grammar errors. Thnx.

Comments

  • PhantasosPhantasos
    My entrance didn't go quite so smoothly. My sister and I arrived about 5:30 and waited in the long line outside. Saw some cool costumes, watched some Bebop on the laptop, played some DS; not a bad wait considering. The registration didn't go so well, though. My registration address is in WV (I'm here for the summer) but my ID had my Iowa address. The person behind the counter apparently got a bit confused by this and this being my first con ever I didn't know enough about the reg process to help her at all so I ended up having to stand in the long "problem line". That took for-freaking-ever but when we finally saw someone at the end of it they were able to take care of me in about 30 seconds. Oddly enough I did see the FRC as I was waiting in the trouble line but they were being escorted over to get their badges so I coudn't flag them down or anything. Plenty of time for that later, though.
    Speaking of; as of now Lindsey and I are planning on getting in ~10:30 ish and meeting at the patio for the GN listener meetup. After that we'll likely check things out downstairs and try to get a feel for the con. As I've mentioned before this is the first time either of us have been to a con and we are totally stoked about it so far.
  • baltmatrixbaltmatrix
    Friday:

    We got to the con just after 11am. I made a b-line for the terrace where the FRC and company were said to be. I ascended the escalator and walked outside. Scanning the terrace I saw a group of people standing around, then, there amongst the gaggle of bodies I saw the ponytail of the Rym. Meeting members of the forum and the FRC was awesome. They are a great bunch of people. :) During the meeting I was able to contact Mike Pfeffer and finally found out what his costume was this year. He was Waldo from Where's Waldo. His girlfriend, Chris, was Carmen Santiago. Nice.

    After the gathering I met up with my crew again and we went for lunch. By complete chance Rym ended up sitting next to us. Something that really kind of got to me was that a quarter of the tables and chairs were removed to make room for construction of a new restaurant. Bastards. So fighting for a table was interesting. Thankfully a group of nice cosplayers were kind enough to let us have their table.

    Our first panel was Science in Anime. While the subject matter was interesting the presentation was downright boring. I was interested in the facts of the discussion but 4 guys talking like a college science teacher was a tad dry. My crew walked out due to boredom (even though I kind of wanted to say). We then went to the Shiatsu Massage. Sadly again this was boring. We gave it 30 minutes but this guy wasn't talking about massage, he was trying to pimp his aroma therapy shit. So again we left do to boredom.
  • baltmatrixbaltmatrix
    edited August 2006
    Friday Part 2:

    After the massage crap we went and watched Ouran High School Host Club 1-4. I have seen it but no one else in my group had. The general consensus was that it was a fun show and worth watching. We then made our way to the Mecha Trivia Game Show. Wow. Talk about a debacle. Oddly enough we ended up sitting right next to Katsu. Gerald from AWO ended up being one of the contestants. To be a contestant you had to answer a little question sheet. I got three out of five. God damn. Only two or three of the questions asked during the show were actually about the robots themselves or the things in the show. The rest were stuff like "This guy was the director or Orgus and blah blah." Those types of questions made up the entire show.

    Now something I noticed this year was the fact that a LOT of panels had computer problems. Not sure what the cause was but they just didn't seem to be having an easy time with it at the Mecha Trivia Show. First they couldn't get anything to display then they couldn't get the web thing they setup to run right. Then they realized that the list they setup was off by one number (since they would have had to start the list with 0 instead of 1). Well Gerald ended up winning. Then the guy running the thing made the mistake of tell everyone to come up to the stage to grab a prize. Um...bad idea there buddy. The best way to describe what transpired is the term Zerg-Rush. That made they whole thing worth while. :P

    We then went to dinner and tried to get to see Lupin III: Strange Psychokinetic Strategy. They wouldn't let people in. Staff said they were at capacity which was bullshit. The Staff this years was poorly informed about things. We then got in line for the fan parodies. The first two were really funny. One was a MasterCard rip-off and the other was about glomping. Those were good. We were then exposed to the DDR Club fan film...again, for the third time. Ack. Then came the horror. It was quite possible the worst fan film ever. It was a fan film about a group of fans from CT coming down to Otakon '05. After about an hour the crowd was chanting "Turn it off, turn it off!" The staff fast forwarded, for almost 10 more minutes. The damn thing had to have been at least two hours.

    Then another fan film came on. It was a plot to kidnap Britney Spears. When a 300 pound woman appeared on screen singing (badly) most of the people in Video 1 stood up and RAN out. No I am not kidding it really was that bad.

    To end the day we got in line for Your Favorite Anime Sucks. This was extremely funny. The panel is three guys, and they select someone from the audience to yell out the name of an Anime. They then bash the living hell out of it. It was all in good fun and everyone seemed to have a good time.

    End Day 1.
    Post edited by baltmatrix on
  • baltmatrixbaltmatrix
    Saturday:

    Due to various reasons we didn’t get to the con until about 5pm. This was mainly do to the fact they there really wasn’t anything anyone wanted to see (I wanted to see things but no one else did). Also the one person in my crew did not wake up until two. I had to threaten him physically for him to get up.

    At 6pm they were SUPPOSED to show Gaogaigar 1-3. Enter complete staff fuckup. They put in GoDannar. A lot of people were ready to lynch the staff. But I, my fiancé, and friend sat there while the others in my group went to go watch other things. I have seen the sub for GoDanner and I have to say that the show is fun and silly (plus LOTS of T&A). We enjoyed it.

    Then off to a long and relaxing dinner. After dinner we went to the Transformers panel. I’m not really sure what the point of this panel was. The only thing I really got out of the panel was that Hasbro really has not put their foot down and decide on one single continuum. There are 4 different histories in the comics and several different ones in animation. Other than that the panel was kind of an unorganized mess.

    These guys had a PowerPoint slide show that just cycled through several pictures. The pictures had NOTHING to do with what they were talking about other than the fact that it was pics of Transformers. After correcting the panelist on several things people in the audience started to ignore them and ask me questions. So in effect I had my own panel going during this one. Does that count as highjacking the panel? 

    After the Transformers panel my crew wanted to go home, I wanted to stay for Mike Pfeffer’s panel and the Zombie panel. They wanted to go home. I lost that decision. So we went home and watch a marathon session of Red Vs. Blue.

    End Saturday.
  • baltmatrixbaltmatrix
    Sunday:

    I got up early (before any of my crew) and left for the con. I got there maybe 10 to 15 minutes before the Podcasting Panel. Even though there weren’t a lot of people it was by far they most informative panel I had seen that weekend. It was indeed fun. Rym and Scott really know their shit.

    After that I hung around for a little bit (no I wasn’t stalking them). I then headed to the dealer room. Picked up a few little things and then my fiancé called, somewhere in between me hanging up the phone and buying something I lost my cell phone. God Damnit. So I drove home, said good by to my two friends. I then drove back with my fiancé and friend Chris. We then went in search of my cell phone. We finally found it at con-ops. Thank you to whoever turned it in!

    Sadly we weren’t in time for the Closing Ceremonies and I missed the con feedback session.  After that we followed Rym and Scott around then to lunch. There was NO were to sit. So I said my goodbyes to them and left to go get lunch else where.

    Sadly this was not that good of a con for us. I don’t think that I will be inviting people back next year; they only seemed to hold me back.
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