Monday, May 08, 2006
Back From ACEN
Just got back around 4 am this morning. Had a good time. I think since I'm still up I'll provide a day by day idea of what went on.
Thursday: Head off to Chicago. Nothing major. Got turned around on the interstate or whatever that goes around Minneapolis
Friday: Arrived about 8 am, got my badge, and just kind of muddled along waiting for ACEN to begin. Highlight of the trip was our driver John getting called an asshole by some black guy. Chicago drivers are insane by the way.
ACEN started around noon. Spent time in the Dealer Area. Did some wondering. Attended an Eva Fan Panel hosted by a guy who runs a larger fansite and the guy who is working on the Eva manga. Interesting perspectives but nothing new. Won a manga volume full of manga I can't read. Grr. Played lots of SSBM in the game room and they even had TMNT: The Arcade Game playable FOR FREE. Awesome.
Attended a showing of weird videos. Too much David Hasselhoff.
Saturday: Early morning went right from weird videos to Midnight Madness which featured anime parodies. Some funny stuff. Saw Evangelion Redeath for the first time. Afterwards I went to watch some anime and for the hell of it caught the Hentai showing. Watched some magical girl show and a show called Invasion of the Booby Snatchers. No one takes these seriously really. Kind of like MST3k experience. Pretty funny. Went to bed aftewards.
Woke up around 12:30 (I was very tired). Participated in a SSBM tourny but got outed in the qualifing round. Just wasn't feeling it. That was after waiting an hour and a half after the tournament was supposed to begin. Then I went back to the dealers room and bought some stuff. Volumes 9 and 10 of Ranma, Comic Party 5, Read or Die 2, FMA 7 and Cromartie High School DVD1 Boxset. Headed back to room and put in some Cromartie but fell asleep which was okay. Naps can't hurt.
When I woke up I headed to the hotel sports bar and got me some very good chicken nuggets. Lord were they good. After some more wandering headed back to my room and sort of watched hentai with the people I was rooming with. Making mostly snide comments at how ridiculous it was while reading my manga.
Everyone in my room went to bed early so I headed out to do further stuff. Went to game room. Then the worst thing of the night happened. I lost my frickin' badge. It just disappeared off the face of the earth. I spent a lot of time trying to find it but gave up around 3 am as it seemed apparent it wasn't going to be found. Got glomped (hugged by random people). Really weirded me out. I had borrowed a friends badge (he went to bed early) so I was able to at least do stuff. Watched a really funny show called Girls Bravo. Just plain odd. Went to bed around 4 am.
Sunday: Woke up around 9 and watched some TV before packing up our stuff in our cars. Headed down to the Dealer area and caved in and caved in and bought a second badge. Pisses me off. Bought my self a wooden sword and another metal sword. Not high quality just normal. Also bought myself a Zangetsu (Ichigo's Sword in Bleach) key chain thing. We left around 2 o'clock.
The drive out of Chicago to Madison, WI was probably the most stressfull I've been in. People in Chicago are insane. When we got to Madison we spotted at a nice Japanese restaurant and got to see them prepare the food with those table side grills. Afterwards we took a group picture and headed finished the last leg. About an hour and a half out of Fargo I drove until we got to the dorms and helped two of the people get their stuff moved and then I got help from the last person to get my stuff in.
Overall, I had a lot of fun. Would have liked to have caught more panels but meh.
Good: John's being an asshole, winning at the Eva fan panel, Anime Hell, Midnight Madness, FREE TMNT!, playing Super Smash Bros. Melee against some real good people, stuff I bought. Anime viewing was also fun. Knuckle's Sports Bar chicken nuggets. Eating at Japanese place.
Bad: Terrifying nature of Chicago drivers, not hitting as many panels as I would have liked but they just didn't have a lot that interested me especially on Saturday, losing badge, having to buy replacement badge. Attempts by Hentai shows to actually have a story. Couldn't get self to do a lot of picture taking. Sleeping on the floor.
Best Cosplay: 8-Bit Link, lots of Bleach characters.
Worst Cosplay: Most everything.
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Thursday: Head off to Chicago. Nothing major. Got turned around on the interstate or whatever that goes around Minneapolis
Friday: Arrived about 8 am, got my badge, and just kind of muddled along waiting for ACEN to begin. Highlight of the trip was our driver John getting called an asshole by some black guy. Chicago drivers are insane by the way.
ACEN started around noon. Spent time in the Dealer Area. Did some wondering. Attended an Eva Fan Panel hosted by a guy who runs a larger fansite and the guy who is working on the Eva manga. Interesting perspectives but nothing new. Won a manga volume full of manga I can't read. Grr. Played lots of SSBM in the game room and they even had TMNT: The Arcade Game playable FOR FREE. Awesome.
Attended a showing of weird videos. Too much David Hasselhoff.
Saturday: Early morning went right from weird videos to Midnight Madness which featured anime parodies. Some funny stuff. Saw Evangelion Redeath for the first time. Afterwards I went to watch some anime and for the hell of it caught the Hentai showing. Watched some magical girl show and a show called Invasion of the Booby Snatchers. No one takes these seriously really. Kind of like MST3k experience. Pretty funny. Went to bed aftewards.
Woke up around 12:30 (I was very tired). Participated in a SSBM tourny but got outed in the qualifing round. Just wasn't feeling it. That was after waiting an hour and a half after the tournament was supposed to begin. Then I went back to the dealers room and bought some stuff. Volumes 9 and 10 of Ranma, Comic Party 5, Read or Die 2, FMA 7 and Cromartie High School DVD1 Boxset. Headed back to room and put in some Cromartie but fell asleep which was okay. Naps can't hurt.
When I woke up I headed to the hotel sports bar and got me some very good chicken nuggets. Lord were they good. After some more wandering headed back to my room and sort of watched hentai with the people I was rooming with. Making mostly snide comments at how ridiculous it was while reading my manga.
Everyone in my room went to bed early so I headed out to do further stuff. Went to game room. Then the worst thing of the night happened. I lost my frickin' badge. It just disappeared off the face of the earth. I spent a lot of time trying to find it but gave up around 3 am as it seemed apparent it wasn't going to be found. Got glomped (hugged by random people). Really weirded me out. I had borrowed a friends badge (he went to bed early) so I was able to at least do stuff. Watched a really funny show called Girls Bravo. Just plain odd. Went to bed around 4 am.
Sunday: Woke up around 9 and watched some TV before packing up our stuff in our cars. Headed down to the Dealer area and caved in and caved in and bought a second badge. Pisses me off. Bought my self a wooden sword and another metal sword. Not high quality just normal. Also bought myself a Zangetsu (Ichigo's Sword in Bleach) key chain thing. We left around 2 o'clock.
The drive out of Chicago to Madison, WI was probably the most stressfull I've been in. People in Chicago are insane. When we got to Madison we spotted at a nice Japanese restaurant and got to see them prepare the food with those table side grills. Afterwards we took a group picture and headed finished the last leg. About an hour and a half out of Fargo I drove until we got to the dorms and helped two of the people get their stuff moved and then I got help from the last person to get my stuff in.
Overall, I had a lot of fun. Would have liked to have caught more panels but meh.
Good: John's being an asshole, winning at the Eva fan panel, Anime Hell, Midnight Madness, FREE TMNT!, playing Super Smash Bros. Melee against some real good people, stuff I bought. Anime viewing was also fun. Knuckle's Sports Bar chicken nuggets. Eating at Japanese place.
Bad: Terrifying nature of Chicago drivers, not hitting as many panels as I would have liked but they just didn't have a lot that interested me especially on Saturday, losing badge, having to buy replacement badge. Attempts by Hentai shows to actually have a story. Couldn't get self to do a lot of picture taking. Sleeping on the floor.
Best Cosplay: 8-Bit Link, lots of Bleach characters.
Worst Cosplay: Most everything.
