Alright, well. Since that convention was only one day, I can't quite say much. Me and my friend went to that convention for the first time. I was not cosplaying because I didn't feel like it, and my friend doesn't cosplay at all. We spent about ten to fifteen minutes standing in line, waiting to buy our at-con badges which wasn't that bad. We eventually bought them and walked around, seeing that the dealer's room was closed. So I killed that time by taking pictures of cosplayers, and talking to a friend I always see at conventions. When the doors for the dealers room opened, we went in, looking at the things. I eventually bought a wall scroll and pencilbag, and my friend bought earrings and cellphone charms for her friends [which she lost but the dealer was nice enough to make a new earring for her]. We went and watched the Kareoke contest, saw the Masquerade, and watched some anime which wasn't that interesting. We ate lunch in Japantown which was conveniently two blocks behind the hotel. We ran into a friend who came with her family... but we didn't do much that day. It was a good convention and there would have been a lot more to do if I was staff [I wasn't old enough to be a staff member] but oh well. They did have panels, but my friend didn't really want to go to them so we ended up spending a majority of our time walking around and doing nothing. I would definitely come back though, the con-ops were very gracious and nice when we kept pestering them to see if my friend's lost items were reported there for the lost and found.
AOD 2007 Pictures
^^
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Con-X-Treme 2007
Pre Convention:
Saturday:
My impressions for the convention the day before the con isn't that great. They don't set up their contacts very efficiently and it takes forever to get responses. After trying to apply for staff, they were unclear on how to pay, and any other necessary knowledge. Their website doesn't list many departments, but only Dealers Room, Advertising, and Art Show. The insufficiency of the website makes me wonder a little bit.Convention Time!
After e-mailing them and asking what time their registration opens almost five or so days before, I still have gotten no response to the day of. Hmm, they also don't seem to have Con Operations. I wonder how they would go and run their registration. Their events page also good for the publicity of their own convention. They list other conventions, rather than events they are going to have at their own convention, suggesting barely any events that will go on. I'm a bit wary to cosplay, but I might bring my cosplay to my mom's work before I go... I may change at her work, but we'll see. It might strike my mom's workers a bit odd if I go bare-backed with my chest... slightly or so exposed. But in about 8 hours from typing this, I'll be at the convention, so we'll see how it goes.
Friday:
Alright, so Friday. I went there a few hours early because I didn't get an e-mail saying when Registration was up. They were set up, I was inducted into the staff. I found out that Registration is so freaking disorganized. Drivers Licenses were taken down regardless of if it was paid in cash or in other means. That peeved me off and was a setback. Plus, they had a development and decided to get pictures of everyone that was registered, taking two hours minimum to get the badges. Basically, badges were not needed until about 4 p.m. where almost every one had theirs. They didn't do group registration properly with all documentations and different badge numbers for each of the people. It was freaking mayhem. Oh yeah, and in the middle of the day, they decided to switch badges from actual badges to nylon wrist bands. Then the head of operations, Terry, doesn't put a LOT of con-goers in special programs in the system. Most of the names in the registration system was random names and conventions that... trust me, wouldn't go to Con-X-Treme if their lives depended on it or other names such as "Great Master Largo" and Milton Le, Fanime, AOD, etc... They'd get better things to do. Well, and they insulted Fanime twice and that peeved me off big time.
Besides that, they barely had anything going on; their anime room didn't have people running it [when I went in], dealers didn't have many people, and I only saw two or so artists. My haul was pretty good, I think. A Totoro plushie for $10, and a manga from an artist for $8. I haven't read it yet, but he signed it. I can tell you now, they need more organization and staff/volunteers as well as a more efficient website. Their address for the place was wrong [as in the number], there was no good response time from e-mails, no contact numbers, only two or so departments doing their own thing, and no information besides how to register. No events pages, no instructions on how to sign for volunteering... nada. They should have had staff meetings before hand to train the staff to be more efficient... and assign more people and also have more departments. Oh yeh, and the credit card machine wasn't working, either. :/
With the first day, I was completely dissatisfied. If I wasn't a staffer, I would not come back for the rest of the week and demanded a refund. I may be really harsh, but as the first year of this con, they should have tried to make an effort to plan it out to make a first good impression.
My experience: All I did was basically walk around a little bit, and work registration the entire time. =.= I did meet a friend of mine from Registration from Fanime 2008, though as well as a dealer whom I *might* have registered for Fanime 2008, too. Oh, yeah. And all the staff members are really old and... well, not very good to being flexible and accepting new ideas. I was the youngest for staffing.
Saturday:
Alrighy, so I went in at around 1 p.m., relieving my friend from registration. It turned out that the martial arts contest was canceled due to a low turnout. Well, since I went when the bulk of the con-goers were already registered, I basically did nothing for the rest of the day. I walked around near the end and attended a bit of the Cosplay event, then went back to registration... played a song of DDR from this guy's program but I sucked because I was in heels and a bouncy skirt. >.> And then the computers had problems yet again... so then I just tried sleeping the rest of the time. Oh, and I also figured out that the anime showings are the same things from the previous day, Friday. Joy, eh? I find it quite ironic how the turnout was expected to be around 700-1,000, but it turns out to be around 200-300 or so, probably less. Wasn't that great today, didn't eat lunch and dinner until I left at around 9:30 pm. Yeah... unless next year I can get in for free again, and I'm assured that it's organized as well as the website considerably fixed up and information is put on there, I won't be going again next year. There was nothing to do at all, except maybe walk around and watch anime [I'd already watched them before, though]. Ugh, at least I got to work Reg. this convention.
Saturday:
Alright, so Sunday... came at late, at around 12 PM. didn't work but went to the anime room and watched some stuff... I got lectured by Terry today, I think he's either VERY frustrated at me for really no reason, I think he was just ranting about something, I had no idea what, but it made me feel really awkward. After, when I got called home, he gave me a free t-shirt and I didn't have to pay anything.
Fanime 2007
Oh man, my overall experience was awesome. Met a few AWESOME people, got to see things I would never have seen in my life if I haven't gone, and done some pretty crazy things. I'll sum up the days here. ^^
Friday:
I got there at around 3:20 PM after school, and tried picking up my badge at Con Ops, but I didn't have any CA govt. approved I.D. and they couldn't find my badge so I sat around, waiting for Antonio to vouch for me. He told me that I forgot that I was supposed to go and pick up my badge from him. Indeed, I did forget. D: I stayed there for like, 45 minutes, too. What a waste of time. I went down with Antonio and Caylin? and I grabbed my room number as well as hotel card key from Kelly, my room head, and went to drop off my baggage with my dad. I changed into my Yuna cosplay and went downstairs, had Caylin "initiate" me as a runner for pre-reg badges. I sat around for about an hour, doing... badges [well, mostly sitting there] and then I went to fill bags with ads and schedules. That was for a few hours, then Caylin came to get me and I learned how to do pre-reg check in. ^^ That was awesome. I did that for maybe an hour or two... or was it three? Eh, well... it was pretty cool, but frustrating because some of the people didn't have an account because they registered at the last days, and they didn't get into the system because Paypal screwed us over. So, yeah. It was over at about 8:10 PM, I ran upstairs to Stage Zero for the Cosspace gathering, but no one was there [I later found out that like, three people showed and they left right after] and then walked around and took pictures of cosplays. I had almost 20 people ask me for pictures [which I graciously accepted. xD] and then walked around, taking pictures of people. I grabbed a bite to eat [pastrami sandwich from the Mariott cafe] and like, three people took pictures of me... just... eating. It was really awkward. Oh! And I saw these guys cosplay as police, and one of them asked to take a picture of me. I was like "wtf, aren't you police?!" but I realized they were cosplaying. xD I walked around after eating, and then this guy dressed in some kinda army... outfit? asked to take my picture, and I took his. Then, I went and walked around, met Melody downstairs, dropped off her baggage, and went to watch a movie, "I'm a cyborg but it's okay" at like, 1 in the morning after many other pictures of me. @.@ Then we went upstairs and went to sleep.
Saturday:
We awoke at 7:00 to go and grab a bite to eat before going to Reg to work. We went to Starbucks, I bought a muffin and tea and we set off to go work. I got set to work at Pre-Reg while Melody was cutting badge paper. We did that for a few hours, Mel got initiated into the working force, I got switched to At Con registration, and then she went out to buy me lunch while I worked. I took a break to eat, then went back to working. We went off and walked around con to go to the Gaia Panel [which sucked, by the way] for about three to two hours. Melody won a Pandy hat from the Panel by finding one of the 4 tickets underneath a seat for it. ^^ Lucky butt. Anyways, we went to our rooms, dropped off a few things, went back and Mel turned in her ticket for the hat. I saw someone who looked strangely familliar, and asked if she was Morbid Gnome.. and it turned out I mixed her up with The Iconoclast and that made me feel really bad... and then I went to this other lady who looked familliar and asked if she was Moonblossom. Indeed, she was! And she recognized me, too! Hehe, she introduced me to Twistex [who had no idea who I was even though I journal stalk him and comment on his profile on Gaia] and we talked a bit, then me and Mel left to work again. After work, I walked around with her again, and went to the Ball. ^^ Mel totally rejected 3 people, and I danced with one person. Eventually, I forced her to dance with this one.. guy. She rejected this girl cossplaying as Vash [she danced with me, the guy I was dancing with, and Mel] with a glowstick.. she was so funny and awesome! But what really got me was that Melody flat out rejected Tuxedo Mask. TUXEDO MASK!! I got soooo~ mad! And then the guy I was dancing with was the soldier dude that took a picture of me on Friday. I'll call him ST. Well, he tried finding me and my friend when we left, danced with us, and.. it was kinda odd. Then we went to Kareoke, he followed, like, 10 minutes later, and it was kinda weird. Well, then we went to our hotel because it was freaking late after playing DDR and dancing a bit more, then we went back to our hotel, only to be stalled by ST. Uh, so I said we were tired and going to our room. He asked if we were going to be there tomorrow, and I said yes. We went back and slept.
Sunday:
Well, this is going to be uber long. We woke up again, at 7:00 and I bought a muffin and tea, then went to Reg. We worked till pretty late, and I don't remember much, but we worked a while... and it was interesting. We made a few new friends, Jon E. and a few others, I forget who else. Well, then we went around and I went to the Dealers room, bought a Rikku Wall scroll, and a Sailor moon scroll. We went to the Gaia gathering which sucked, and I found AnimeEmperor and said hi, in which he responded with a few words and just... walked off. Uh, well, we went back to work, went off work. We went to the masquerade and watched skits and stuff... We went to the dance, danced with Kandice, walked around afterwards, and then met Jon. We talked for a bit, went to a Piano for him to play, but it was taken. We said we were hungry, so we went to Jack in the Box, at like, 3 in the morning and saw police at a place in the road. Apparently there had been a shooting or something. We arrived at Jack anyway [which was freaking packed] and this guy kept making weird faces at me and we got our food, then walked back to Con. While we did, I guess a homeless guy came up to our group asking for food, and Jon gave him a handful of fries, which I thought was extremely nice. We ate at the Con, and decided to pull an all nighter.
Monday:
So, continuing with the all nighter. We went into the Game room and Jon played Guitar Hero in which I'd never played before. I played next turn, and basically FAILED. It sucked. Then Mel played on hard, and did okay. We decided to play DDR, and I was in a skirt, so it sucked. But then we met some other guy, Jon's friend who was pretty good, despite his earlier modesty. He played the guy Jon was playing on Guitar Hero and... well, we played for like, an hour. We also met Paul, another one of Jon's friends [he knows like, everyone]. We went to our hotel room, decided to meet at around 6:45 AM at the same place. Me and mel packed our bags to have Kelly check out, then we went and put our bags at the concierge place. ^^ We got there at around 6:50, but didn't see anyone, so I grabbed a bite to eat while Melody basically slept. We went back at 7:20, helped Antonio set up and then sat there for a bit. xD We had Kirby, Jon's doll in which I am the Godfather for, and Antonio was like...
"Haha, that looks like my little brother's doll."
"Yeah, it is."
"What? What were you doing with my brother?"
"Nothing, just talked."
His reaction was actually kinda funny. Well, we opened up, but it wasn't really that busy, so we sat around and I took pictures, made friends with Nathan, a guy who did line control. A few days back, I was so bored I'd wave my sign around like crazy even if there wasn't anyone in line. He came over and was like "if you put it up one more time, I'm going to confiscate it". He came over quite often at my booth and just stood around, listening to our conversation. I was trying to take a picture of him but apparently he hates pictures. I got 5 good ones, even if he kept saying he was ugly in which I responded that he wasn't. I snuck the pictures. ^^ And blinded him a few times. It was fun. I ran to the dealers room and bought a Domo hat and wore it. ^^ We ended at around 12:30 PM and cleaned up, took more pictures, and then ate at Pizza My Heart. I almost passed out because I was so tired, then I got people's contacts and stuff and left after saying bye to everyone. I don't remember much, I was too hazy to. @.@ Hopefully I'll be able to go next year, it was so much fun. ^^
Fanime 2007 Pictures
Friday:
I got there at around 3:20 PM after school, and tried picking up my badge at Con Ops, but I didn't have any CA govt. approved I.D. and they couldn't find my badge so I sat around, waiting for Antonio to vouch for me. He told me that I forgot that I was supposed to go and pick up my badge from him. Indeed, I did forget. D: I stayed there for like, 45 minutes, too. What a waste of time. I went down with Antonio and Caylin? and I grabbed my room number as well as hotel card key from Kelly, my room head, and went to drop off my baggage with my dad. I changed into my Yuna cosplay and went downstairs, had Caylin "initiate" me as a runner for pre-reg badges. I sat around for about an hour, doing... badges [well, mostly sitting there] and then I went to fill bags with ads and schedules. That was for a few hours, then Caylin came to get me and I learned how to do pre-reg check in. ^^ That was awesome. I did that for maybe an hour or two... or was it three? Eh, well... it was pretty cool, but frustrating because some of the people didn't have an account because they registered at the last days, and they didn't get into the system because Paypal screwed us over. So, yeah. It was over at about 8:10 PM, I ran upstairs to Stage Zero for the Cosspace gathering, but no one was there [I later found out that like, three people showed and they left right after] and then walked around and took pictures of cosplays. I had almost 20 people ask me for pictures [which I graciously accepted. xD] and then walked around, taking pictures of people. I grabbed a bite to eat [pastrami sandwich from the Mariott cafe] and like, three people took pictures of me... just... eating. It was really awkward. Oh! And I saw these guys cosplay as police, and one of them asked to take a picture of me. I was like "wtf, aren't you police?!" but I realized they were cosplaying. xD I walked around after eating, and then this guy dressed in some kinda army... outfit? asked to take my picture, and I took his. Then, I went and walked around, met Melody downstairs, dropped off her baggage, and went to watch a movie, "I'm a cyborg but it's okay" at like, 1 in the morning after many other pictures of me. @.@ Then we went upstairs and went to sleep.
Saturday:
We awoke at 7:00 to go and grab a bite to eat before going to Reg to work. We went to Starbucks, I bought a muffin and tea and we set off to go work. I got set to work at Pre-Reg while Melody was cutting badge paper. We did that for a few hours, Mel got initiated into the working force, I got switched to At Con registration, and then she went out to buy me lunch while I worked. I took a break to eat, then went back to working. We went off and walked around con to go to the Gaia Panel [which sucked, by the way] for about three to two hours. Melody won a Pandy hat from the Panel by finding one of the 4 tickets underneath a seat for it. ^^ Lucky butt. Anyways, we went to our rooms, dropped off a few things, went back and Mel turned in her ticket for the hat. I saw someone who looked strangely familliar, and asked if she was Morbid Gnome.. and it turned out I mixed her up with The Iconoclast and that made me feel really bad... and then I went to this other lady who looked familliar and asked if she was Moonblossom. Indeed, she was! And she recognized me, too! Hehe, she introduced me to Twistex [who had no idea who I was even though I journal stalk him and comment on his profile on Gaia] and we talked a bit, then me and Mel left to work again. After work, I walked around with her again, and went to the Ball. ^^ Mel totally rejected 3 people, and I danced with one person. Eventually, I forced her to dance with this one.. guy. She rejected this girl cossplaying as Vash [she danced with me, the guy I was dancing with, and Mel] with a glowstick.. she was so funny and awesome! But what really got me was that Melody flat out rejected Tuxedo Mask. TUXEDO MASK!! I got soooo~ mad! And then the guy I was dancing with was the soldier dude that took a picture of me on Friday. I'll call him ST. Well, he tried finding me and my friend when we left, danced with us, and.. it was kinda odd. Then we went to Kareoke, he followed, like, 10 minutes later, and it was kinda weird. Well, then we went to our hotel because it was freaking late after playing DDR and dancing a bit more, then we went back to our hotel, only to be stalled by ST. Uh, so I said we were tired and going to our room. He asked if we were going to be there tomorrow, and I said yes. We went back and slept.
Sunday:
Well, this is going to be uber long. We woke up again, at 7:00 and I bought a muffin and tea, then went to Reg. We worked till pretty late, and I don't remember much, but we worked a while... and it was interesting. We made a few new friends, Jon E. and a few others, I forget who else. Well, then we went around and I went to the Dealers room, bought a Rikku Wall scroll, and a Sailor moon scroll. We went to the Gaia gathering which sucked, and I found AnimeEmperor and said hi, in which he responded with a few words and just... walked off. Uh, well, we went back to work, went off work. We went to the masquerade and watched skits and stuff... We went to the dance, danced with Kandice, walked around afterwards, and then met Jon. We talked for a bit, went to a Piano for him to play, but it was taken. We said we were hungry, so we went to Jack in the Box, at like, 3 in the morning and saw police at a place in the road. Apparently there had been a shooting or something. We arrived at Jack anyway [which was freaking packed] and this guy kept making weird faces at me and we got our food, then walked back to Con. While we did, I guess a homeless guy came up to our group asking for food, and Jon gave him a handful of fries, which I thought was extremely nice. We ate at the Con, and decided to pull an all nighter.
Monday:
So, continuing with the all nighter. We went into the Game room and Jon played Guitar Hero in which I'd never played before. I played next turn, and basically FAILED. It sucked. Then Mel played on hard, and did okay. We decided to play DDR, and I was in a skirt, so it sucked. But then we met some other guy, Jon's friend who was pretty good, despite his earlier modesty. He played the guy Jon was playing on Guitar Hero and... well, we played for like, an hour. We also met Paul, another one of Jon's friends [he knows like, everyone]. We went to our hotel room, decided to meet at around 6:45 AM at the same place. Me and mel packed our bags to have Kelly check out, then we went and put our bags at the concierge place. ^^ We got there at around 6:50, but didn't see anyone, so I grabbed a bite to eat while Melody basically slept. We went back at 7:20, helped Antonio set up and then sat there for a bit. xD We had Kirby, Jon's doll in which I am the Godfather for, and Antonio was like...
"Haha, that looks like my little brother's doll."
"Yeah, it is."
"What? What were you doing with my brother?"
"Nothing, just talked."
His reaction was actually kinda funny. Well, we opened up, but it wasn't really that busy, so we sat around and I took pictures, made friends with Nathan, a guy who did line control. A few days back, I was so bored I'd wave my sign around like crazy even if there wasn't anyone in line. He came over and was like "if you put it up one more time, I'm going to confiscate it". He came over quite often at my booth and just stood around, listening to our conversation. I was trying to take a picture of him but apparently he hates pictures. I got 5 good ones, even if he kept saying he was ugly in which I responded that he wasn't. I snuck the pictures. ^^ And blinded him a few times. It was fun. I ran to the dealers room and bought a Domo hat and wore it. ^^ We ended at around 12:30 PM and cleaned up, took more pictures, and then ate at Pizza My Heart. I almost passed out because I was so tired, then I got people's contacts and stuff and left after saying bye to everyone. I don't remember much, I was too hazy to. @.@ Hopefully I'll be able to go next year, it was so much fun. ^^
Fanime 2007 Pictures
Fanime 2006
Okay, so for Fanime 2006, I only went for one day, but this is what I basically did:
I stood in line for 3 or so hours on Saturday at around 10 AM, waiting to get into the Gaia panel. I was late a few minutes [well, okay, maybe 30 or so], but afterwards, I walked around Fanime with my mom and I got a picture with Vo and posters were signed as well. I got a Kiki shirt as well as an OMG and a few freebies, too. That was a fun day, I got to hug Vo, too. It was pretty short since I wasn't much into it, and I can't do much with my mom hanging over my shoulder, so after a few hours of that, we went home. The only picture I got was with Vo.
I stood in line for 3 or so hours on Saturday at around 10 AM, waiting to get into the Gaia panel. I was late a few minutes [well, okay, maybe 30 or so], but afterwards, I walked around Fanime with my mom and I got a picture with Vo and posters were signed as well. I got a Kiki shirt as well as an OMG and a few freebies, too. That was a fun day, I got to hug Vo, too. It was pretty short since I wasn't much into it, and I can't do much with my mom hanging over my shoulder, so after a few hours of that, we went home. The only picture I got was with Vo.
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