ladydouji | Entries tagged with con report

I've been neglecting my lj recently, but I have some stuff to talk about it.

I went to renfest back on the 13th. Used my old belly dance outfit and some wings I made as a fairy costume, and took my doll Cordelia with me dressed up as a fairy. She was huge hit with the crowd there. I didn't buy as much as I thought I would, just two dragon puppets for my neices, a hair stick, and my yearly scent oil necklace from crystal mountain. Most of my money went to services like hair braining and foot massage, and overpriced renfest food.

The weekend was Oni-con. and oh the stories.
Thursday I loaded up my car with my clothes, sewing machine and unfinished bits of costume and headed out to class. Immediately after class I went to the hotel(dude 10 minutes drive tops) and met up with Misty and Nikki in the lobby. We got checked in and our stuff up to the room, then went downstairs to wait for Brian. Once everyone was there, broke out the unfinished costume and got to work. Misty helped by cutting out the red triangles for the bottom of the cloak(and was way too amused by the rotary cutter I had for the job) Managed to finished, then we munched on snacks for dinner and went to bed.

Friday morning we were joined by Vanessa who I had invited from a doll forum to join us so she could come to the doll meet. Her tiny litte banji was so cute. Got dress in my costume and headed how to registration to get my badge. It seemed a little better organize then last year thankfully. I then wandered around the artist alley waiting for the dealers room to open. Found a girl selling tiny EGA hats, and noticed that they were perfectly sized for my doll. I tried a few on my boy and ended up buying two throughout the con, and sending a few other doll people her way to buy hats. A few people recognized my costume and took pictures but not many. Dealers room opened and the spending really began. My haul for the day ES' otherwise complete series, vol 5-11 of Bastard, vol 1 of Suikoden 3, vol 1 of Juvenile Orion, a kingdom hearts poker deck and tsubasa reservoir chronicles poker deck, and mini Death Note notebook. Wandered in and out of the viewing rooms but nothing really got my eye before heading back to the room and meeting up with the others. Bored and staring at the inputs on the room tv a crazy plan was formed for me to run home, get my ps2 so we could hook it up to the tv and actually watch some of the anime we were buying. And since Vanessa wanted to hit HEB to check her work schedule and stop at a liquor store we headed off. Grabbed what we needed and headed back to the hotel. Got there and I found I forgotten to bring a controller or remote and so I had to run back home in get one. Also grabbed a white skirt and my winter boots as last minute changes to my costume, got back to the room and we watch Haru and Guu one of the crackiest animes ever to have cracked. And then it was time for bed.

Saturday, much the same as the first with wandering the dealers room, getting some final fantasy pins, a saiyuki poster, ff12 poster and a little game cartridge holder that straps onto my nintendo DS, which had a mini DS charm that fits into my doll's hands. Too cute for words. There was a dollie meet-up down at the starbucks. I took a few pictures but most of them came out crappy. Later we ordered pizza and started the ritual of getting drunk for hentai fest. The pizza was good but gave me heartburn, which sadly slowed down my drink. This is most unfortunate for reason that will be explained later. But we headed down for Hentai fest, which was much easier to find this year by virtue of actually being on the program. Security dude checked my id and then invited me to a halloween party. Hentai fest started and while I was drunk I was not drunk enough. The guy in charge apparently has an anal and feces fetish and delights and forcing it down the audiences throat. And he showed Bondage Games, which he had shown last year, one of the sickest, grossest and just plan bad hentais out there. Ugh, next year if he tries to show it again I'm organizing a viewer revolt. And then it was back to the room foe sleep.

Sunday, last day of the con, packing up the room and checking out of the hotel. Got a cupcake from an L cosplayer in the elevator as reward for correctly answering the Cake or Death Question Got all loaded up and did one final swing through the dealers room, finding and picking up so old school Gundam WIng pins and was able to replace my chibi Trowa in his clown suit pin I had lost years ago. Also Ran into Squidflakes(con regular who carries around a squid plushie for "instant tentacle porn" pics. We talked about how bad Hentai fest was and I wished some-one else would do it. He has now vowed to apply and takeover Hentai Fest and Bring the Sexay Back! Yay!! Dropped Vanessa at the greyhound station and headed home.

And that was oni-con 2007.

Going to try to be coherent but I just got back recently so no promises. I did have a lot of fun though.

Thursday night: Not much happened. Went to the hotel and was hugged by Oni-con 2005 survivors. Such love. Met up with Misy, Nikki, and Brian to check in and get ready for con start. Brian also introduced me to the insane cracky Male cheerleader game on nintendoDS. SO much crack.

Friday: I woke up before dawn(WRYYYYY!) and spent time just laying and bed watching it grow lighter outside before giving up and getting up. After getting dressed I went in search of breakfast and failed. I did find a japanses sushi restarant though. Then Misty and I went in search of registration, found a Starbucks and so had breakfast. We did find registration but it didn't open for serveral hours. SO we just hung out, I got a pic of a Cloud cosplay who then kindly gave me beef jerky. YAY for free food.

After several hours, registration opened. Misty and Nikki were pre-reg while Brian and I were not. Oddly Brian and I got our badges first, even though the pre-reg line was shorter. One minor though, was that they had no maps and no schedules at the registration desk(they had been printed, but they just hadn't gotten the boxes yet) Anyway we were registratered but the con wasn't officially opened yet so I began wandering. Stumbled upon Brian again and we went on a con Dungeon crawl to find stuff. We successfully located the viewing rooms and the arcade. Con EXP was awarded and we leveled up. I drooled over a girl's lovely dollfie that she had dressed up as Axel. I actually spent a lot of time over the weekend drooling over dollfies. I want one soooo much.

The con finally officialy opened and into the dealers room I went. I wanted to pace myself so I managed to limited myself to just a few pins and manga and later some ff7: ac gashpon figures and Zidane figure.. Then I noticed a sign one of the dealers had. "Help Wanted: 3 hour blocks, paid in store credit" And I ended volunteering my help along with another girl named Laura. It was oddly fun working there and it kept me from spending too much money. I did only 3 hours that day before wandering the con again, but did agree to work on saturday as well. Met up with the others and we ordered pizza which I ate way too much of. Also the ice machne on our floor did not work all weekend so I went off to a random floor to raid their ice machines. Later after the others had gone to bed I realized it was way to early for me to be sleeping and I was not tired at all. So I put on my shoes and jacket and went off explore the con at night. I met up with a group of people playing duck duck goose and joined them. We played another children's game that I can't remember the name of and then I went off again. I caught the last 15 minutes of the friday night Hentai-fest. It was quite amusing. Finally felt tired enough to sleep so head back to the room. Found that I suck at working those damn keycards, but Misty woke up and let me in and I went to bed.

Saturday: I got up nice and early to go back to the dealers room to work. Took pictures of cosplayer who came by our booth and had a lot of fun leading people to things they would like. Though my co-worker refused to believe I was 27 even though I showed her my id. And slightly disturbing I told henry(guy I was working for) that I wouldn't be able to work Sunday as I was going to be hung over and he responded by saying I should join him later and he'll get me booze. Later he asked how old I was and revealed he though I was 19 and not supposed to have booze. Nice. Anyway the end of my 6 hours came and I claimed my merchendise an awesome FF7: AC Cloud and his bike action figure and some naruto pins. Took my swag back to the room and grabbed my Sandman: The Dream Hunters book to find the Amano autograph session. Found it with some others and started lining up. Good thing I went early as they capped it at 100 people. I was number 5. It was great. I couldn't do more then a fangirl squeak of love and appreciation, but he drew a little portrat of me in the book and signed it. *sigh* soooo happy. Wandered, bought prints and a My Little Bad-ass Sephiroth badge in the artist alley. Though about buying a pair of very nice fairy wings, but they didn't have a color I liked.

Later we ordered in chinese and it was rather nasty and overpriced chinese and proceded to get drunk, except for Brian cause he doesn't drink. Watching toonami and Ultimate avengers movie laughing all the way. Nikki unfortunatley got sick and missed out on the rest of the evening's adventures. Misty and I put our booze into water bottles and went in search of Hentai-fest. We picked up a little 15 year follower(who I think was hopeful for booze, I said no, Misty said yes and we let Brian be the deciding vote) But were first distracted by a bring your own pillow fight, which ended before we got our pillows but moved on to a card game. I was sent to get something and found hentai-fest. So Misty and I ditched the card game and the minor for porn, but we picked up another follower so it was ok. Hentai fest was filled with sick twisted shit which should be rather unsurprising. Many comments were made and we were quite loud. What was sad is at one point we moved from our seats to ones closer up. Misty thought she lost her waller, so I went back to our old seats. No wallet but found a cell phone. Yelled to the room asking if anyone lost one, no response. Went back to Misty who had her wallet, but turns out the cellphone belongs to our completely sober(if sleep deprived) follower. He's very lucky I found it when I did, but he looses at con. We finished off the booze during Hentai-fest and switched to water when it was over. Played and talked with Tentecle guy in the cafe area of the con center with a few other people. I can't even remember a lot of what we talked about, but then Misty and I were simply babbling drunkenly while others watched on and were highly amused before we gather our pillows and went back to the room to sleep off the rest of the booze.

Sunday: I awoke with an extremely dry mouth which was part hangover and part allergies. We then packed up our stuff, loaded out cars and checked out of the hotel. I went back to the con because there was an artist in the Artist Alley I wanted to get a commission from and to check the dealers room one last time. Got soem host club manga. Such a wonderful series and then waited for the artist to show up. I managed to be third in line for her commissions that day. The picture is pretty cute and I will scan it later. It's me with Sano(Kenshin) and Fai(Tsubasa Reservior Chronicles) And that pretty much did it for me I finally headed home.

Pictures will be posted later. but for now I need a nap and later have to go out to my parents place.

So I have a paper to write, it's a short two part paper(total 1250 words), the rough draft is due midnight April 30th, final is due midnight may 7th. I currently have only 132 words written for the first part. What have I been doing instead?

Well Friday afternoon my sister-in-law called in desperate need of a girl's night out away from her husband and children. Since I've been wanting to hang out with my SIL I agreed. We met up at my place and went to Jullians for violent videogames and booze. Shared a large margarita while playing Resident Evil 4. We didn't pretty well I thought, getting to chapter 4(albeit dying many times) before we gave up. Messed around with the Derby owner thing, interesting but I found it rather boring quickly. Got additional drinks, me with a long islend ice tea and her with a bear and we headed upstairs to the patio. Some-one remind me to never wear a skirt up there again, because while I was wearing a long one, the wind had me doing a Marilyn Monrow impression until we sat down. After chugging now my LIIT we wondered around the Marq E center, getting some pizza(dayam those were some big slices) Tried going back to Jullian's but found that the Arcade portion was closing early due to a party that had been booked *pout* Tried locating another bar, but didn't find one worth the cover to get in for only one hour. So we went to my place, and played We Love Katamari for a while.

As for today, remember the con I mentioned in an earlier post? I decided to go, mainly because I like have anime cons in town and want to support them. Now granted I didn't stay long, just got a couple pictures of costumes I liked, spent money on pins and playing card decks, a 1/6th scale figure of Laguna Loire from FF8 and a 1/6th scale figure of Tidus(for my friend Jala as she's been hunting for one, too bad they didn't have two cause now I want one) Left shortly after my batteries died and I couldn't take anymore pictures, did get to catch a glimpse of an anime called Haruka 8(ok that's just the short title) shoujo genre, and looks slightly similar to Fushigi Yuugi(girl transported to magical realm and is a priestess, has mystical protectors) getting a hold of more episodes now and will give a more in depth review as I watch more.

Now I'm going to go buy some groceries and dinner while letting the rest of my pastiche stew and then get my ass into gear and finish this thing. Oh if anyone cares the Pastiche portion of the paper is Beowolf in something of a cyberpunk setting, if you're interested in reading it let me know and I'll post it here.

SO today I managed to get up and head out to the park plaza hotel for Oni-con 2005. Registration was a mess, you filled out a form, paid, then had to stand in the lobby and wait for your name to be called to get your badge. This unfortunately lead to much confusion as to where the line was. Got my badge and started exploring. Found the panels and the video rooms, but there wasn't anything currently playing that I was interested in. Oh and they again didn't have any signs on the video rooms saying what was playing and when.

Then came time for the dealers room. Surprisingly I didn't find all that much that I wanted, I typically for for little things like pins, pencil boards and playing cards, and there didn't seem that much of that kind of merchendise. Tons of action figures, plushies and the capsule figures though, plus cosplay accessories, and j-pop cds(though I didn't see that many anime cds) Did get some cute Kyou Kara Maou pins, a naruto pencil board, took a chance on a grab bag and got some action figures. Also tried on a corset. OMG! made me so skinny but could not breathe. And knocked one more person off my christmas shopping list.

Wandered around a bit, watched some of The Brunch Club a parody movie combinding Naruto and The Breakfast Club. It was hysterical, though kept wanting to punch the person behind me who kept talking and didn't seem to get half the jokes going on. Then went off to take cosplay pictures. Found some really nice ones, and found myself lusting over some of the elegant gothic lolita dress(and am currently telling myself I would look foolish dressed in that fashion to push down the OMG sooo pretty!! reaction I have to seeing them)

Finally bugged out because I was tired(my sleep schedule is completely fucked up) stopped at best buy on the way home and ended up getting Sorcerer Stabber Orphen Revenge series. Yes the complete series, apparently ADV is selling complete series of some older less popular things cheap. It was 30$ o_O Now I feel old because I can remember when a videotape of 3 episodes was 30$

And I did learn that it's much more fun to go to a convention in costume, and now kinda wish I had worn my Kenshin one(amazingly I did not see anyone wearing Kenshin costumes) Well now I know and have motivation to work on my Hilde costume.

So after a very restless night of no sleep I got up today and headed out for a day at Kamikaze con in downtown Houston. Did a quick run into work to see about tomorrow, my request is STILL listed as waitlisted >< fuckit! I'm calling off.

Anyway, made it downtwon and found a place to park and headed toward the hotel. Aided and abetted the deliquicy of a minor by pretending to be her gaurdian so she could get into the con. *waves to newly discovered little sister Laura* Put on my kenshin costume after getting my badge and the picture taking began. Apparently I was the only TV kenshin there that day, and I only saw two other people cosplaying kenshin characters, one Sano and one OVA kenshin. Tons of naruto cosplayers though, which did kill my desire to cosplay as a naruto-chan come A-kon. At the same time I'm getting a little tired of my kenshin costume(worn it to three cons already)

Dealers room opened a little late and the damage to the wallet began.
my finds
Fruits Basket Illustrated by Natsuki Takaya artbook
FF 6 shonen ai Edgar/Locke Eternal Heaven dj.
Naruto manga 1&2
Demon Diary 6
Tsubasa 1
Getbackers 8
Playing card decks for FMA, Fruits Basket, and Naruto
Various pins
a silver and garnet ring
a black tank top that says "You don't need to look at my chest. These are not the breasts you're looking for. Move along"

Free stuff
Collector Yui volume 2
Chrono Crusade vol 3
and a Cowboy bebop pin.

Watched some E's Otherwise, remembered I liked that show from the fansub I managed to get. *adds to list of dvds to buy and sighs at the length*

Hit the yaoi panel and learned of a new company planning to liscense and bring yaoi manga over Website here Founded and run completely by fans. Looking forward to see what they have.

I aslo finally got to see a Carrot Glace cosplayer. Poor guy he had been going around with no-one even realizing he was cosplaying until I went up to him and said " You're cosplaying as Carrot Glace, right" His response, "YES!! *hugs me* thank you!!!" Probably helped that I'm a complete Carrot fangirl. ^_^

Also went to the cell painting panel with Steve Bennet, although it should be marketed at a motivation panel with cell painting. He just kept talking and talking and talking. Afterwards I did one last run through the dealers room and saw a t-shirt which required a call to Blue because I knew she would love it. it was black and said
bag of dice. 15$
graph paper. 2.75$
enough imagination to play rpg's: priceless

There are some games money can't buy, for everything else there's Xbox"

After that last run I was exhausted(stupid sleep deprivation) stripped out my costumes(don't worry I had normal street clothes on underneath) Headed out to blue's to give her the shirt, watched the Incredbles and came home.

If anyone cares to see me acting like a geek check out A Fan's View Scroll down and you can see me as Kenshin

and now I'm going to bed.