Saturday, May 19, 2007

ACen Report-Finally Finished!
Friday-Finale

It is past 7pm on Friday night and I have found a seemingly empty room to sit quietly and text Katana. I had been sitting for a while before texting her, and right as I started, I heard a commotion, which caused me to look up. Low and behold, it was the Spiral Spiders filing in for a panel. I was perfectly content to text Katana while listening to the Engrish of Spiral Spider’s front man, Yosuke Sakanoue. He tried to do most of the panel with his Engrish skill alone, *insert fangirl squee*! They were so fun and one girl had flown from the U.K. just to see them perform in Rosemont!

After the Spiral Spiders panel ended, I moseyed next door to see Lisa Furukawa’s concert. She was at MTAC, but I missed her main concert because it was on Sunday, so I was glad for a chance to finally see her. I waited and waited in line only to find out that her concert time had been pushed back. I took the time to eat some crackers and right as I was stuffing my face, the Spiral Spiders walked by. Bad timing. I just kept my eyes focused on the pack of crackers. I didn’t want to look up for lots of reasons, the main one being my very attractive cracker-filled chipmunk cheeks. :-P

Even by the time Schultzie met up with me again, the concert still had not started. We finally headed over to the Anime Hell event, which we were told we absolutely not miss. The line was insane! It stretched all the way out side. We watched them file in for thirty minutes, I swear! When all was said and done, the room hit capacity and we were forced to find other means of entertainment.

Our final panel of the evening was What Happens at the Con Stays at the Con, with our old friend from the Eva panel, Spike Spencer. He was pretty funny as usual, and he told more funny stories, but when he started talking about sexual exploits and orgies I was neither impressed nor interested. It still turned out to be an entertaining panel. I wanted to check out Midnight Madness and Underground Groove, but Schultzie and I decided to head back to the hotel so we could get plenty of rest for Saturday.

Saturday

We all woke up pretty early, even MsKeller who had stayed at the con until 4am watching yaoi. I needed a phone card because I was running out of minutes and Schultz needed batteries for his camera so we set out in search of a Walgreen’s. We ended up eventually finding a Target. Being at a Target where you had to park in a parking garage was an interesting experience. We then made our way back toward Rosemont (the Target was kind of out of the way).

It was after 11am when we reached the con, so I hauled ass to the SaiYuki panel, which I really wanted to see. I got a text from Katana around this time telling us that she was there waiting in the horribly long registration line. I told her I was off to the SaiYuki panel and she told me she’d text me when she made it through the line.

The SaiYuki panel was fan run and I lost interest fast, so Schultzie and I were off to see what else was happening. Schultzie ended up going to the Final Fantasy XII panel and I scooted on over to the Living and Teaching in Japan panel to see if it was going to be any good. After waiting a while, it was apparent that the panelist was not showing so the panel was cancelled. With nothing else interesting happening, I decided to just go wait in line for the Spiral Spiders/High and Mighty Color concert event. It was in this time that Katana and I kept trying to call and text each other to arrange a meet up. The eventual decided place was the café in the back of the dealer’s room at 2pm.

The Spiral Spiders were actually a very good live band. I was only able to catch two or three of their songs before I decided to take the skywalk of doom back toward the dealer room area so that I wouldn’t be late for the meet. I sent out a group text to Schultz, Katana, and MsKeller to make sure that everyone got the message (we had no way to contact BellPickle at this time). On the ten mile hike back over to the dealer’s room, I realized I had just gotten up and walked out of the Spiral Spider’s concert without my jacket and schedule >_<.

Schultz and I met up briefly as I was standing in line to get some food from the café (we hadn’t eaten since early Friday morning). Schultz declined food and headed back off to the dealer’s room while I braved the lines and busy tables to procure some food (two hot dogs and a water) and a place to sit. The hot dogs weren’t that great (surprise, surprise) and apparently they don’t eat catsup on their dogs in Chicago (my mom tells me I am the only weirdo that does!). With my meal consumed, I had nothing to do but sit and wait for the MyO meet up.

My phone rings. It’s Katana telling me that she and her friend Waffles are at the café but that she doesn’t see us. It was so loud we could hardly hear each other, but I eventually deciphered that Katana was in front of the café next to the Funimation booth and I heard something that sounded like “yellow cream puff” but I was sure I had heard that wrong.

I rounded the corner and saw two girls in Ouran uniforms (one in the boy’s uniform and one in the girl’s). “I see you”, I yelled in to the phone as I hung it up and started toward them (I was like ten feet away from them at the time). K was still on her phone, not having heard what I had just said. I looked at her badge to make sure and yep, it was her!

MsKeller showed up a few minutes later and barley said hello before having to rush back to her booth in Artists’ Alley. The three remaining ‘Oer’s wandered around the Dealer’s room and Artist Alley in search of anime booty. The meeting is kind of a blur to me but we extensively scoured the Dealer Room (mostly in search of Mori merchandise for me), we made several trips back and fourth between the Hyatt and Convention Center, we met up with Bell for a little while and she brought Japanese snacks and tried to educate me on Korean rap (she rocked!), we ordered pizza and had a My Otaku Pizza Social, I stuffed three bucks in the leather strap of a guy who was scantily clad on a dare from Katana, we retrieved my jacket and got me a new schedule, and mostly just kind of lounged around and talked. It was cool, though it didn’t seem like Walffles was having that good of a time and poor Shcultz was in tow of us crazy fangirls.

After Katana and Waffles left, Schultz and I wandered around a little more before I decided that there was nothing else I cared to see. I took a cab back to the hotel room, where I got a message that my mom was really sick. She almost had to go to the ER on Friday! With that on top of the job thing and financial things looming, I decided it was best to make my way home as early as possible, despite my plans to revist the Dealer room and see more of Chicago on Sunday.

I spent the rest of the night arranging for transportation home and thus ended my con experience. It was fun and I learned a ton while testing the waters this year. I know what to do and what not to do to make next year rock even harder (I’ll be flying in to O’Hare since transportation costs were almost three hundred dollars, much more than the money I saved on my flight).

Hope to see some of you there next year (I’ll be staying in the Hyatt in a Regency Suite if I can reserve it in time!).

THE END

So that was it. Thanks for reading! Tomorrow it is back to real time, though I might give my impression of your favorite MyO members that I got to meet live. Until then!

--Shinkiro
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