NYCC/NYAF '10 Recap: Day 3

Wow it's been a while since I did the last update of this convention. Here's the third and last installment. Hopefully you'll all forgive me for taking my sweet time writing it up!

I started my day out sleeping in/oversleeping and then catching a cab down to the convention. I did a little bit of early morning wandering around before the convention opened and then headed down to the fashion show line to wait. I met some really nice lolitas in line and then got a really good seat at the fashion show. Unfortunately, my camera REALLY didn't want to cooperate with me during the show so my pictures aren't very good or numerous. I've long forgotten many of the designers names but I really liked the more regal fashions that there were. I want to say it was I Do Declare who was the designer. If I'm wrong please correct me! I saw a lot of pieces that reminded me of h.Naoto and other punk/goth labels. There wasn't much that I wasn't fond of. I'm posting here a few of my photos that came out that I liked.

This was my favorite piece of the show!

After the fashion show, I decided to check out Takamasa Sakurai's panel and the lolita panel he participated in afterwards. I hate to say that I found his panel to be terribly boring, but he did the panel with Kanon of An Cafe, who was quiet and reserved but fairly adorable. The panel focused more on cosplay from the headline series of anime. I'm not into cosplay like I used to be and I was really expecting the panel to be more about fashion. The other panel, which I believe was something along the lines of making lolita work for you, was a little more interesting. I have the same criticism for this panel as I had for the Day 1 lolita panel I went to. It was nice, but the panel seemed to be more geared to newcomers to the fashion, although they did have a few cute and original coord photos to show off. They also had a giveaway which was nice. I'm a big fan of giveaways at panels even if I never win anything XD.

Me with Sakurai ^ ^

After the panels and fashion show, I came back to see Eric, who in my absence, had finished the mural! There were a ton of people checking it out and the finished piece was quite lovely. Unfortunately we did not get to hang it this year which would have been awesome, but it's not always possible since the conventions don't really have the fixings for it. We've always had to improvise in years past with the equipment they could provide us last minute. Regardless, the final piece was quite awesome.

We decided to wander the floor a little bit afterwards and had a convention volunteer valiantly guard the piece. We visited a bunch of different companies but hurried back to the mural out of fear of some unfortunate event such as children running under the bars or a spilled cup of coffee. On our way back, I saw a really nice Master Chief cosplay. I've always wanted to wear a Spartan suit myself, so this one is a favorite from this convention.

Lastly, I wanted to post a few of my favorite lolita coords again. I loved meeting all of you! You all looked great!

You can't go wrong with Vampire Requiem!

Pink and red seemed to be the color of the day!

Rocking AP Fantastic Dolly in mint!

A nice display of the variety that can go into sweet lolita ^ ^

Hope you enjoyed all the recaps even though they were quite spread out. It was a great time and I can't wait till I can go to another con. Its a wonderful excuse for me to dress up and treat myself to some new goodies. You'll hear from me again real soon, I promise!

As always, check out Eric's work at Pepperink.com!

NYCC/NYAF '10 Recap: Day 2

I'm getting a little behind on these blog posts (Oh nooooo! T_T) . I think it's about time I get back on track before I forget all the fun little details that were the NYCC/NYAF.

I started the day out by heading straight to the Hangry & Angry Fashion Show before the con doors opened to wait in line, and I'm glad I did. While the show wasn't as full as it could have been, the room's layout didn't lend itself well to tons of people. I got a seat in the front row right where the models stopped for a photo-op. My camera seems to be on its way out so I'm glad I got seats there or else I may not have gotten any photos. Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed with this collection. There were a lot of really nice individual pieces, but I guess I just wasn't feeling the actual coordinates. Maybe this type of punk just isn't really my style... Either way I did get a few photos and I've picked out a couple pictures I liked best.

Shortly after the Hangry & Angry Fashion Show, I met up with a bunch of other lolitas and we had a little swap meet. While I didn't actually sell or trade any of my stuff (T_T) I did pick up a few new things. I got a couple of pairs of socks from BTSSB and Meta, some Meta jewelry ,and an offbrand blouse. I was tempted to buy a couple other things (I'm far too good at spending money -_-') Luckily for my bank account, I realized that the dress I was looking at was something I probably wouldn't actually wear... Crisis averted XD. While I don't think I got the whole group of us in the photo we did manage to get at least one group photo before the con staff headed over and shouted at us to move. I guess we were blocking some invisible entrance or something...

After the swap meet, I wandered around and did a little bit more perusing in the Dealer's hall. I ended up picking up a pair of wrist cuffs at the Kinokuniya booth since they were pretty and not overpriced like the rest of the booth. I also picked up the most adorable skirt from the Ichigo Black booth for my niece. Unfortunately, my niece was not a big fan of the skirt. She liked the skirt but didn't like that it had people in the print of the fabric -_-''' I guess you just can't win with 8 year olds... At least my nephew LOVED the Call of Duty blanket I found for him. I did okay with not spending TONS of money the first two days of the con.

I met a large panda whilst shopping!

I didn't spend a ton of time chilling with Eric on Saturday. I did get a chance to offer to get him food or a drink, but that was the extent of it. He was a lot more productive than I was, which he was really stressed about. In the end it worked out quite well. He had the YuGiOh logo just about finished before we took off to have dinner. We had dinner at this amazing Italian restaurant. I got some really tasty chicken dish that I've never heard of and no longer remember the name of (other than the word "pollo" was in it XD). I know you don't care about my dinner though, so on to the mural photos! As always, if you'd like to see more of Eric's work (and I know you do!) Visit his website at Pepperink.com

This is about where he ended on Day 2

Saturday, I wore my beloved BTSSB Pockets Embroidery. It was great to finally get to wear it in a full coord. The blouse is AP and there is some Meta jewelry. Everything else is offbrand or a replica.

photo by frozenmotion9

Bag and skirt detail. photo by frozenmotion9

Bling Bling! - Photo by frozenmotion9

On the subject of lolita, I saw a lot of awesome lolitas again on Saturday. Just like last time, I'll post up a few of my favorites. I was very pleased with the number of good lolitas I saw throughout the whole weekend. ^ ^

Me with frozenmotion9 with are netted headdresses ^ ^

Twin Irongates!

Sweet lolita in Wonder Cookie. I love the AP envelope bag ^ ^

A cute classic lolita

Lastly, I wanted to showcase a few cool cosplays I saw. I was kind of all about lolitas on Saturday and Sunday so I didn't get very many cosplay pics. I heard that there was a lot of awesome stuff out there I must have missed. Check out the pictures!

A cute Disney Alice ^ ^

This kid has a really cool mom!

These guys visited Eric twice during the weekend and stayed in character. It was hilarious XD

This was probably my favorite cosplay of the entire weekend. I really like how the flash washed her out.

Thanks for reading this portion of my recap. Day 3 will be up soon.

Otakon 2009: The Recap

Now that Otakon has come and gone once again, it is time for my typical recap. You can all rejoice.

Day 1

The first day of the con started as the first days usually do. We got up super early and made our way over to the convention center. This year was slightly nerve racking as no one bothered to give us our special passes we needed. Regardless, everything worked out well enough and we got to our spot and began to set up. This year was particularly neat because Eric's spot had a camera looking down on the piece which was a really nice touch. It was definitely a bit of a face palm moment when we found out that they were just doing a live feed instead of actually taking video because of "a miscommunication." Once again though, it was a nice touch.

Perhaps I'm a bad assistant but in the first hours of the con my mind wasn't even remotely focused on the chalk art, but the Brand clothing in the dealer's room. The very moment we had Eric set up, I was off to scout out what treasures there were to be had. I first managed to get a hold of BTSSB's Princess Drop Embroidery Pocket JSK in pink. This is both extremely exciting and disappointing. This is my dream dress in black. I settled for pink because my choices were between that and blue T_T. I also managed to get the Sweet Melody Pochette in pink from Angelic Pretty to match it. ^ ^ Its pretty amazing. ^ ^



Once I had finished my escapades in the dealer's room, I went back to check on Eric and check out the Artist Alley. I wandered around Artist Alley for some time, which was mildly disappointing save for one or two booths who weren't selling the typical drawings of popular characters in cookie cutter poses. I was upset to be unable to locate Morrigan NYC as I wanted to get a look and perhaps purchase one of their raven skirts they just released but Lolitas and Cream's adorable sweets jewelry made up for thier absence. I must say that their sweets jewelry has gotten much cuter since last year. I bought a ring and a necklace this year, which I love. By the time I was done running all over Eric had accomplished quite a bit of work on his piece.

Day 1 was a little uneventful after my hours in the dealer's room. Partly because Travy was sleepy and cranky and because there wasn't a whole lot going on that was relevant to my interests. We made attempts to go play MTG at a store somewhere in Baltimore but that was thwarted by Travy's sleepiness and our single standard deck between the three of us. We ended up heading to Little Italy instead. We found a cute little cafe/restaurant and decided to eat. I had the best cannoli in the world there and then we returned to the Inner Harbor. We wandered around a small mall for a bit then headed back. Like I said, Day 1 was a bit boring.

Day 2

Day 2 started out with us waking up way too late. I wanted to go to the Ultimate Lolita Fashion Show but didn't make it. I got up and got dressed up in my frills and we headed out for the Lolita Swap Meet. We got there pretty early so we ended up waiting for quite a while. In the meantime Travy and I played DS and occasionally stopped to look cute together.

The Swap meet was extremely succesful for me. I managed to get rid of everything I took to trade except for an Anna House cutsew. I ended up with two new brand blouses (AP and BTSSB) and an AP cutsew. It was quite exciting. Poor Travy had to sit through it all but inside I know he was enjoying the ridiculous amount of lace and frills ;p.

Time for Coordinate info!
Socks and Parasol : BTSSB
Skirt : ITS
Blouse : Rakuen
Shoes: Montreal
Jewelry: Meta

After the swap meet, Travy and I went to the Cheesecake factory. I got some wierd potato and salmon thing that I was not too fond of but did not get any cheesecake T_T. The place was kind of nice and on the plus side we got to see an epic battle between a small bird and like 8 pigeons over a piece of pizza crust. I got some video of it so enjoy.

Video to come soon...

After eating, we made a mad dash to get into the Kanon Wakeshima concert line. Which bordered on the line of ridiculous by the way. When we were there waiting for the swap meet two hours earlier there were maybe ten people in line. When we came back this time, there was nearly enough to fill the entire theatre hall. We still managed to get decent seats somehow though. The concert was really good and I am jealous of the dress she was wearing. The end however was a bit hectic. Some poor planning on the side of the people running the concert caused a mad rush at the end of the show to get in line for her merchandise and autographs. Many people were sent out and left unhappy. I myself just left and am glad I didn't waste my time as there was another much less crazy signing the following day in the dealer's room. I took off to the dealer's room once again and picked up her cd for the signing.

Day 3

The final day was a bit crazy too. We all had to get up early and be out of our hotel before we went to the convention. We got out early and took all our stuff to the car and headed in for the last day.

The first thing on the agenda was to get to the dealer's room for Kanon Wakeshima's signing. We got in line outside the dealer's room at nine and waited. I was amazed at some of the bad cosplay I saw. Most notable were the Mana cosplay and a Cami cosplay from Street Fighter. The Mana cosplayer was particularly bothersome because I had to listen to her go on and on about how much of a J-Rock know it all she was. Simply wearing EGL (made of shitty materials no less) with poorly applied black makeup does not make you Mana even if you do have a Moi Dix Mois pendant. My beef with the Cami cosplayer was her disappearing thong and that people need to understand that just because they aren't fat doesn't mean they look good in skimpy clothes. This chick really needed a pair of pants to cover her flabby ass badly.

The signing itself was quick and painless. We were pretty close to the front of the line. Kanon didn't seem too pleased to be there so she made no attempt to be friendly. She took your object signed it and handed it back barely even glancing up to say hi. I have to wonder if she's just not a morning person or if Mana's inability to deal with people has worn off on her.

We made one last run around the dealer's room, I found some cute stationery and Travy got me a Charmmy Kitty Plushie, which brings me to something I've been harping on lately. Its somewhat creepy when you stop to think about how Charmmy Kitty is Hello Kitty's pet cat. Its worse than the whole Goofy/Pluto thing Disney has going I feel. While it is strange that Goofy gets to be humanized while Pluto is a pet, Pluto isn't Goofy's pet which is what makes this so off.

Afterwards, we decided to run around Baltimore one last time mainly to get some food in our stomachs. We ended up at McDonald's where we had our most interesting homeless/beggar experience. Not only did she attempt to push Jesus on to me but in the same breath also asked me to pay for her prescription. Then preceded to argue with the cashier about how she was in line (Which she wasn't) and should be served next. The amount of offended black chick attitude in one room was almost enough to scare me as the three women behind the counter got angry and louder while arguing with the lady who failed to understand that one must actually be in line before they can be the next in line. The rest of our trek was pretty uneventful save for being screamed at by a homeless dude in a wheelchair and being able to express our inner /b/tards.

We returned one last time to the con to help Eric tear down and whatnot. For those of you who have yet to see the finished piece...here you go ^ ^

They helped us hang it up very last minute and unfortunately it was after the con was over. It was still pretty awesome though. We did our typical teardown when we hairsprayed the living daylights out of the piece and sectioned the piece up. It now resides in its tube where it is likely to remain until the end of time.

Overall, it was a pretty decent convention. I think to be honest I enjoyed the smaller NYAF more to it though. I'm looking forward to it in September this year. As Eric is planning on doing another mural, I will see you then and there.

Check out more of Eric's work at www.pepperink.com

Chiller Theatre Memories

With Otakon 2009 coming up, I've been thinking about some of the past conventions I've gotten to go to and have come to the conclusion that a lot of weird shit goes on at these things regardless of what kind of convention you are attending. I started going to conventions about six years ago with the Chiller Theatre conventions in New Jersey. As the name suggests, Chiller Theatre is a horror movie convention, but to me seems to be a relatively calm scene. The first year we (Myself, Eric, and Alexis) went, there were quite a few cool guests. We met Elvira and Linda Blair. Linda Blair was fun to chat with because like most people who live in the Binghamton area, we were familiar with Elvis the Cowboy. Naturally, we had to tell her about him. For those of you who actually read this that are not from scenic Binghamton, Elvis as you should have gathered from the description is a cowboy complete with the holster, (toy) guns, and hat. He is tiny man about the age of seventy that wanders about the places of business calling women by the names Linda Blair and Jennifer Lopez. He once called me Poccahantas. He is a tad crazy as you may have gathered. He calls most men he runs into by Bruce Lee. Linda Blair seemed to be rather speechless when we told her about him. She seemed to think that he must have had something happen that he related to one of her movies. This may have been a decent theory if one of my coworkers hadn't straight up asked him about it one day. He told us that he calls attractive women Linda Blair because they are attractive too. He followed up by saying that Linda Blair is getting to be all washed up and he's been calling people Jennifer Lopez lately. Without knowing these key bits of information though, Linda Blair signed a photo to "The Great Cowboy" which we later framed and gave to Elvis for his 68th birthday. He told us he'd be crazy if he ever gave it away. If only he realized the irony in his comment...

Although not directly related to Chiller Theatre, I thought I should mention how much New Jersey sucks for trying to eat us everytime we traveled through on the way to and from Chiller Theatre. Screw you New Jersey <3 New York.

Another very entertaining moment of the following year's convention was the fact that Peewee Herman was one of the guests. He's gotta be like sixty maybe older by now. Sadly we did not get to meet him, but I did manage to get my hand slapped away by his body guard. That's right people. Peewee Herman's body guard hit a harmless gothic lolita. I blame Alexis 100% though. She REALLY wanted to meet him/hug him/ or squeel at him. I can't remember which. So when we saw him walking though the con we followed after him yelling PEEWEE! He skillfully ignored us though and kept walking. We finally got close and I reached out to poke him to get his attention. The moment my finger touch his suit jacket my hand was viciously slapped away. It was rather upsetting T_T

On a final note - I find it to be extremely interesting that there is usually a huge number of porn stars on the guest list at Chiller Theatre. I wonder why this is. I found it to be even more amusing that most of them that we came into contact with were completely in love with our lolita coordination. This wouldn't surprise me in Japan, but for some reason its rather shocking in America.

R.I.P. - Tiara of Alexis

A Long Past Due Recap of Comic Con '09: Day 1

Hehe....So I fail....Almost a month after the NY Comic Con, I am actually posting my blog about it hehe. Because there's so much to talk about I am going to break it up hehe.... Ok ok.... This is really so I can procrastinate and take more time to write the second half... Here we go...

Day 1
So Day 1 started with us getting up super early to dress up in lolita. As I predicted in an earlier blog Alexis was most def. a grumpy Gary. We'll fast forward ahead to the leaving of the hotel as the rest of that is kind of boring... We stepped outside of the hotel to realize exactly how freaking cold it was outside... We ended up waiting for a bus for pretty much forever... While waiting for the bus some other fellow con goers requested pictures with us.... Being as cute and sweet as we were we agreed....If only we knew how many photos we would be in that day.... We tried to escape the cold by going into this little bakery that the bus stop was outside of and we bought cannoli ^ ^ It should be said here that little kids seemed to be overly happy at the sight of us in our ruffles and lace. This little girl probably thought we we're princesses as she could not stop smiling. So once we got to the con, we had to wait in line.... except not really ^ ^ Because we are loved we were hooked up and got to skip ahead of the exhibitors line ^ ^ On hindsight I really wish I had went to see how long the line for the average convention goer was like... So we got in and went to our booth space....But RockStar Games had kind of overtaken it... Unfortunately these things never go easy I guess.... we ended up getting a much better booth space though... So we got to work setting up Eric's booth until we got distracted.... Whoever thought it would be a good idea to put us in close proximity to a video game booth where we could play FEAR for extended periods of time is either an idiot or a genius...


We started by taking some test thingy where they stuck these things on our heads... Then this dude took notes and asked us questions....



Not to call the dude out or anything but... I remembered WAY more than Alexis and she somehow managed to score higher than me... I think someone's slacking on their job... XD



So FEAR 2 was really fun ^ ^ They had you sit in this cool chair and you had all sorts of monitors that monitored nothing...sigh for aesthetics.... It also had a camera so you could be self concious about whether or not your fake hair looked good while you killed things.



Unfortunately I am awful at FPS.... I blame my lack of experience with an XBOX 360 controller though....


After that we ran around the con for a few hours and accomplished nothing or in my case accomplished a lighter wallet... We spent way too much money on food and got our photos taken over 9000 times... Some people didn't even ask....Like the guy that took this photo...

This guy just jumped down on his knee about 20 feet away from us and snapped a ton of photos and RAN off..... He was referred to as "that one creeper" the rest of the con... We eventually went and signed up for the Conflux sealed event for later that night... We had to walk in front of the variant stage in order to get to the gaming area... There was an awful comedian doing some show... On our way back out... we had just gotten past the stage when we hear yelled into the mic "ARE THOSE LOLITAS!?!?" He went on to talk about how the say that the Japanese people are messed up. Then he corrected himself instead to say that its the entire race that is messed up. We lol'd a bit and continued on before he started to suck again. After a bit more con going we finally decided it was time to retire our frilly butts for the day....I flagged down my first cab ever and we headed back to the hotel. This cab ride was really pleasant and was a positive experience... Had I had my second cab ride as my first.... I would probably never get into another cab for the rest of my life. More on that in a moment...So we changed and it was time to head back to the con so I could be a loser and play in the EPIC! FNM Conflux release party... The cab ride back to the con was also quite EPIC!... He weaved in and out of the ways of other vehicles at speeds you would expect out of an amusement park ride. Every five seconds he needed to slam on the brakes to avoid killing all of us... At one point in time we were stuck at a traffic light long enough for me to fall asleep... wake up.... and ask Alexis "what's taking so long?" Guess what question I learned to never ask in a cab again.... Suddenly our cab driver veered out of traffic.... On to the sidewalk...Now I'm not talking about cutting across the corner... He actually drove on the sidewalk for a good 50 feet and then ran the red light that we had been waiting at... Within 5 minutes we were back at the con...slightly shaken but thankfully alive... We then made our way back to the gaming room...I placed 20th out of 42 so I am quite content with that plus I ended up having a few things to lol about there as well... Me and Alexis drew a lot of attention being the only 2 attractive girls out of the 5 that were in a room of 60 guys -_-' We got there like a half hour early and sat down at a table by ourselves... I marveled at how the chair was able to support this one guy at the table next to me and we were eventually graced by the presence of this kid...



I'll leave it to Alexis to talk about this kid.... I was a bit too busy building my deck but wow this kid could talk. Alexis couldn't have made it more clear that she didn't want to talk to this kid and he just kept going on and on.... He still kept going even after she told him she was a lesbian! Finally he left after what seemed to be an eternity... But back to my awesome pulls... Not only did we get 3 FNM promos...but I opened up a foil Maelstrom Archangel!



My first match was good ^ ^ I owned the kid the first match and barely lost the second. We went into overtime for the last match and the guy was nice enough to forfeit as I would have killed him the next turn anyway had we not had the 5 turn clock on us... The look on his face is what losing looks like as a facial expression.... Make sure you take note of my large but not obnoxiously large D20....



My second and fourth matches were awful to me hehe I was destroyed both times.... My third match was interesting... The kid claimed he got shitty packs but really I think he was just a bad player... I destroyed him both games and I would have taken photos of his fail but we were too busy being told that we looked like we were 16 while he stared at Alexis's tits.... They were calling him was his excuse XD... Alexis was displeased...I however was very amused... Regardless I feel that this deserves a victory pose ^ ^



Anyway... That about sums up the first day ^ ^ I'll eventually post a blog about the other 2 days ^ ^ BTW... This is pressure for Alexis to write her recap as well.....

New York City FTW

So I am in New York City now ^ ^... And we didn't get lost in New Jersey for the second time in my life! We are staying in a Sheraton...Its kinda tiny but it works for our small group of four.... I'm currently typing from my mother's mini laptop therefore typing errors are likely to be abundant in the upcoming blogs. The ride down wasn't bad... I'm quite tired but can't seem to actually sleep... I blame my current 3a.m. lifestyle.... meh... We went to Friendly's on the way down.... See Alexis's blog for stories on that... hehe.... But yeah tomorrow at 6:30 we will be getting up and no doubt Alexis will be quite the grumpy Gary....We will be super cute in matching Alice and the Pirate sets though.... So its worth it... The con opens at like noon I think so we will have quite a bit of time to wander after we get Eric all set up... I need to locate a few booths.... the Squishables booth is a must because I need an octopus.... ^ ^ It should be a good time.... I feel like I'm just rambling now though....So this blog is officially done for the night ^ ^

I'm a high school lover, and you're my favorite flavor
Love is all, all my soul
You're my Playground Love

Yet my hands are shaking
I feel my body remains, themes no matter, I'm on fire
On the playground, love.

You're the piece of gold the flushes all my soul.
Extra time, on the ground.
You're my Playground Love.

Anytime, anyway,
You're my Playground Love