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