Post by LadyRiona on Apr 21, 2007 0:30:30 GMT -5
Okay! Convention report from Ri!!! Tekkosho was awesome. A lot of really awesome people there, including Vic Mignogna, Greg Ayres, Mari Iijima, Greggo the Hostinator, Kyle Hebert, Brett Weaver, Carrie Savage, and Michael Poe. Robert and Emily DeJesus were supposed to come but they had a family emergency and sadly could not make it.
Day One:
Anyway, it was a fun convention. Upon arriving, Anime, Raven, Bob and her brother and I checked in, of course. Anime and I had to vouch for Raven to be sure she was who she said she was since SOMEONE didn't have any I.D. on her. xD Anyway. After that, we sat around for a little bit then dispersed. Sometime later, I ended up in line to the Opening Ceremonies with a serious yaoi fangirl thinking, "Oh dear God...please help me," because she was a little loud...when Ri is with people like that, she tends to ah..."disappear"? Anyway. After a while, we got into Opening Ceremonies and listened to everyone talking, blah blah blah, people were introduced, said hello, announced they had a panel and whatnot.
As soon as Ceremonies ended, poor Vic was pretty much swarmed by his fangroup; which is cool, cause we love him. (His fangroup is called Risembool Rangers.) Since Ri seems to disappear when around loud people, she stood around for a while until she became impatient and finally tapped Vic's shoulder. He signed my latest drawing of Ed Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist (which I plan to upload soon) with the caution of, "Don't let anybody else see right now, or else we might get in trouble." xD SO yeah, needless to say, I didn't let the other Rangers see.
Uh, after that...I got some pics with Vic and Greg Ayres (who is an absolute doll, he's so nice and funny, and entertaining). I don't quite remember what came next; I think I found Bob and put the stuff I didn't need into her car and saw her off to her classes. Inside again, I found Anime, who had DNAngel playing cards, which were later signed by Vic. But anyhow, she took a pic of me in my kimono, and I took some pics of a large Edward head with Hohenheim. Then was the dealers room. I won't even divulge--okay yes I will.
The Dealer's Room was HUGE. It took up a third of the building!! As soon as you walked in, the noise was vast and almost overcoming. So, the first thing I did was buy some Fullmetal Alchemist playing cards for my sister since genius here forgot said sister's drawing for Vic. To redeem myself, I later got him to sign one of the Ed Elric cards. But anyway. I bought cards and a wallscroll there; shopped around at other places; bought the first two volumes of the manga Absolute Boyfriend from the booth Raven was working at (did you ever take advantage of those credits? You worked like TWO shifts...); then I bought a Roy plushie. :3 Along the way, I was mentally comparing prices of hats and plushies, filing away who had what and so on and so forth. After that, I was positively starving (nothing more than a Hawaiian roll for breakfast SUCKS) so sucked it up and paid the price of Con Food (which wasn't that bad here actually) for some fries and a cheese pizza...and coffee. Lovely coffee.
During my eating time, Mandy and Brittany from the Rangers, and Bob's brother (J-D) joined me. During that time, the Miniskirt Army, Travis Willingham's AKA Roy Mustang's fangroup, had a panel of their own. The other two Rangers and I were like, "DUDE! WTF? O.o Why don't WE have a panel of our own? VIC is here!" We were talking about crashing it, but then thought it'd probably be funnier if we all just piled in there and sat in the back, glaring. The "we", of course, being the Rangers.
After that, I think I strolled around Artist Alley for a little while, making friends with a guy who something for me (his main subject was hentai though *sweatdrop* but no worries! What he drew was clean; very funny. I'll upload it too.). He had a horrible cold/cough thing so I gave him one of my cough drops.
Next was the AMV contest. It was really neat; there was like 85 entries this year in contrast to 74 last year. Anyway, I met a (blond) Kagura and (naturally red head) Kyo in line for the contest. So I hung with them until Bob called me, asked where I was, said she was coming back from classes. After that, I hung with some of the Rangers before Vic's panel.
It was really funny; since the AMV contest had just taken place, the lights were off, so when we turned them back on they had to "warm up" again. So Vic's talkin' to us and I'm recording parts of it (I MIGHT be able to get my video up, if I can clean up the sound) and one particular funny thing he said was, "I'm here...to talk you guys...about anything. As long as it isn't dirty." Then half the crowd made "AWWW!!!" noises, and Mr. Guy In The Bad Controlling The Media said in his big microphone voice, "Well there goes all the GOOD topics!" (Note: Vic is a devoted Christian and tries to do his best by God.) But anyway, he told us some stories, some old, some new. Such as...the Donut Story...buahahahaha.
The Donut Story is classic and will NEVER get old to us. It goes like so...Vic was in the recording studio for Fullmetal Alchemist. The specific episode was for The Other Brother's Elric. Ed had been punched in the face, so when Vic saw that his cheek was puffy, he said, "Oh! I should probably do something or get something that makes it sound like I have a swollen cheek." So he gets permission from the folks in charge there and heads out to find something to stuff in his mouth. He accosts the poor snack machine and, with a sudden bout of inspiration, sees....dooooonnnnnuuuuuttttssssss...powdered ones. So he buys those. There's six to a packet. In the booth again, he shoves one in his mouth and says one line. Then sits there, with the slowly decaying donut in his mouth while the directors line up the words with the lip flaps. What is Vic doing while he's sitting there? Holding his hand against his mouth, trying to keep the oatmeal/porridge like substance from spewing out of his mouth! So after a little while, he's able to spit that donut out and then restocks. Repeat above.
The Donut Story.
Another story was...who knew Vic had been a cop before being involved with Voice Acting? O.O So he told us a nice story of his police days...actually, his mom told part of it. Vic was on patrol one day when a little boy comes up to him and tells him that there's fighting going on in an alley. So Vic sends the boy off and goes to investigate...in a dark, dead-end alley. (BAD idea usually.) So as Vic is walking down the alley, this shady lookin' guy is trudging away with his head down, trying to appear invisible. At the end of the alley was this little parking area type thing...in which was a beaten, bloody, and stabbed man. Putting things together like the smart man he is, Vic immediately runs after the man he'd just passed in the alley. The man ran into an arcade and TRIED to hide in one of the picture taking booths. Fruitless hiding, as pretty much everyone was looking at him. So Vic arrests him, AND the dude's brother later on. The attacked man was transported to a hospital and lived. It turned out that the beaten man had been flashin' around some big bucks. So the two arrested men became "friends" with him and then promptly beat him up and stole his cash first chance they had. In the process, they stabbed him with his own knife. Anyway. As this was the state of Maryland, they have a "three-strike-you're-out" policy. Well, this was the third offense for both men...so they were put in jail for a very loooonnnngggg time.
And now that I want powdered donuts....
Once the lights had "warmed up" again, we pretty much immediately turned them off again to watch two videos he'd made, one Real Life video to the song he wrote called "Middle Tennessee," based on the game of Dodgeball/Risemball between the Rangers and the Skirts at MTAC (a convention in Tennessee) in which "Rangers bested Skirts in a hotel parking lot". We were the SECOND crowd EVER to see it. Woot for us! It should be up on Youtube soon if anyone is interested. The other video was one he had made to the song he wrote for Fullmetal Alchemist titled "Nothing I Won't Give". Both were extremely well done; but we expected so. He DID go to college for this!
Anyway, Vic answered some questions and told more stories, such as how the "Roy Mustang is DEAD SEXY...In a miniskirt!" line came along.
Yet another interesting story...Vic had been in a panel at some convention when someone asked him to say ONE nice thing about...Colonel Roy Mustang. e.e SOOOO....Vic said in his Edward Elric voice, "Roy Mustang is DEAD SEXY!!" after which people hooted and hollared. To be funny and put a pun on dear Mustang, Vic tacked on, "In a MINISKIRT!" And thus the line was created.
But anyhow...he had his CDs there with him so they went FAST for $10 each. I bought his "piano for the quiet time" Selah CD (gorgeous music). We formed in a huge line that had to migrate to the side of the room to make space for Greggo's next panel. When I got up there, Vic signed a Risembool Ranger card, one of the Ed cards in the FMA playing desk for my sister, and the paper in the Selah CD case for me. :3
After that, I hung around with the Rangers until we, including Vic, marched across the street from the con center to Don Pablos with about 30 people! So we ate dinner there and I met some other Rangers also from Virginia (the state from which I currently hail) and we talked about Katsucon and their plans for it next year, so on and so on. Vic and Mandy came to visit us (we took up like three tables...two and a half? anyway he was at one, and I was at another, long story short) occasionally since we were across the room.
So the Ranger Dinner was fun. After that, we went outside and took pictures (which I didn't get, sadly, but I'm sure they're on the Ranger forums...). Once that was done, we all stumbled (because of the camera flashes) across the street, following the Man in Black, AKA Vic, like a cult following their cult leader. Just joking. Anyway. After that, Bob picked me up from the con center 'cause I'd had a splitting headache for a few hours. End of Day One. See below are the pics from Day One. Click on them to enlarge.
Day Two:
So everyone minus Anime, who we dropped off someplace the previous night (heh), piled into Bob's car the next morning and had to endure some freakin' awful traffic...again. But at the convention, we immediately scurried off to the Fullmetal Forum III panel, featuring Vic, and listened to more Q&As and he told us about the mini-church services he has at cons, and how they started. That particular story is interesting. Caitlin Glass, who plays the voice of Winry Rockbell in Fullmetal, is also a Christian. So she and Vic wanted to have some God-time one Sunday at a convention. Vic found a piano and just played some songs and they shared some things with each other. Within a few minutes, about fifty people had shown up! So it's like a church service for people who, if they had not been at a convention, would be at church anyway.
Some trivia: did you know that Vic played an extra voice in Fullmetal Alchemist? I'll give you good karma someone (who was NOT at the panel) can guess who in which episode.
After that was probably one of the most amusing moments of the convention. You see, I had another place to be almost immediately after the Fullmetal Forum panel, but I didn't feel like I was totally redeemed in my sister's eyes for forgetting her drawing. PLUS, I'd promised her this. Since the con security folks had practically shoved everyone out of the room after the panel was over, I waited outside of the room for Vic. He had an autograph signing set up right after. So thinking totally of my sister (okay...not completely but close enough), I walked with Vic to the signing, on the way asking if he'd be able to take a few minutes to talk to my younger sister on my cellphone. Being the nice guy he is, he said sure. So I walked with him to the signing area. One problem. Security. Here's how the mini-convo went:
Security guy: Excuse me, you can't get past.
Me: But...I'm allowed, Vic said--
Security guy: Who gave you permission?
Me: ....Vic? *duh*
Security guy: Hey Vic! *points at me* She okay?
Vic: *looks, nods*
Security guy: *I think he rolled his eyes* Fine.
Me: *in my head: Yay! then prances in after Vic*
Anyway. He talked to my sister for a little bit, which pretty much made her lifetime. When I got the phone back, she pretty much hyperventilated in my ear screeching, "I *gasp* got *gasp* to talk *gasp* to *gasp* VIC MIGNOGNA!!!! *dies*" I kid you not.
Okay. After that, I talked to Bob and Raven for a few seconds before running off to possibly my favorite panel of the entire convention: Glomping 101. The first four pictures are from this panel.
The first thing I hear when I walk into the panel room is something about a "girlfriend" "don't" "not" "glomp" and some other random words that would make most people be like, "O.o er?" But the guys showed us 21 glomps. If you want to know the ones I remember, ask me and I'll PM them to you.
During the panel, my sister called me and wanted to talk for ten million years so I told her I had to go...
After that, I really don't remember what we did. I THINK (we'd left Bob's brother at her apartment by the way) this was when we went to Applebee's, which was amusing in itself. We walked in, Bob the only one in relatively normal clothes (Anime was wearing the Krad, from DNAngel, cosplay I'd made for her for NekoCon, Raven in a shirt she'd made/modified, and me in my Samurai outfit), and proceeded to be a little loud. After our main food, we ordered dessert. No lie; it was gone...in a minute flat. *nod* It was this little chocolate lava cake thing that looked like 1/6th of a bundt cake with this chocolate syrupy stuff in the middle. The second the waitress put it on the table, Raven downright ATTACKED it not three seconds after it touched down. That included grabbing a spoon and digging in...yeah. It was gone. Quickly. Very funny.
After Applebees, we went back to Bob's apartment for a few hours. Anime and Raven watched Supernatural while Bob and I read manga and napped. J-D was watching LoTR: Return of the King.
So sometime into our space at home, we started getting ready for the rave that was being held that night (whewwww!!!) and we had to fight with someone's shirt. xD It was funny....we ended up safety pinning it later the evening. But anyhow, we ate a little bit of stuff then went back to the con center for Mari Iijima's concert. (She was both the Japanese AND English voice for Minmei in Macross.) She was so cute! After the concert, I bought (with Bob's money >>) her latest CD called Uncompromising Innocence, I think. It's really nice.
After that was the line for the rave, which was freakin' awesome. Greg Ayres DJ'ed it and it was almost more fun watching him jam out up on the stage than it was to dance or watch the ravers with their glowsticks. So we danced for two hours or so (man were we kinda sore the next day!) then finally decided to call it quits about half an hour before it ended because A) we were tired and B) we wanted to not be in the traffic getting out. End of Day Two. Below are the pictures. Click to enlarge.
Day Three:
So, all weekend, the females in the group were ALL excited about this panel on Sunday morning...it was a host club, probably modeled after Ouran High School Host Club (good series btw). So we get there in time to get good seats and there are two people up front asking us questions about Host Club. Minutes later, Greg Ayres (Mr. DJ man with the crazy hair) walks in. My first thought is: He's hosting a host club? Okay. But anyhow. He immediately hops up on a table and starts talking about Beck. "Have any of you heard of Beck?" "Has anyone ever seen or read Beck?" We're all like, "O.o ....no?" and then someone finally asks, "Uh, are you hosting Ouran Host Club?" And he shoots back almost immediately, "No, this is the Beck panel. The Host Club was canceled."
HALF the room cleared out. Greg's response? "Well, now that the riff-raff is gone..."
So he tells us about this AWESOME anime he's in that's being released in the US in July. It's on Much Music TV in Canada right now, they're up to episode 12/26. I think 26 episodes. Anyway. It's really good; if you like rock music and rock stories, this one is for you. If you have tender ears, however, maybe not so much but anyway. Afterwards, he gave most of us guitar picks with "Beck" on them, gave out posters for people who answered some trivia questions, signed stuff (he signed my badge! ), and gave out hugs.
After that, since the Dealer's Room was closing, I ran around frantically and bought some stuff, including a Roy plushie, an Ed hat, and some buttons and hairpins from Artist Alley. Since the con was coming to a close, we decided to leave so as to avoid con traffic, AGAIN.
On the drive home, we stopped at Panera Bread (see the Post-Con Pics) for some late lunch. After that was the drive back...in which my Ed hat scared the living daylights out of Bob. I was looking down in my lap at my plushies that I'd bought and Bob looks in her rearview mirror and all she sees is Ed...glaring at her. She's like, "OMG!" and starts laughing...then her brother looks back and laughs...and yes, it was funny. Anime calls it Bob's nightmarish vision. That's it for Day Three.
Post-Con Pics:
But that's pretty much it. Tekkoshocon 5! Look out for other con reports from other attendees here at your favorite writing and art website, Novice Writers!
Day One:
Anyway, it was a fun convention. Upon arriving, Anime, Raven, Bob and her brother and I checked in, of course. Anime and I had to vouch for Raven to be sure she was who she said she was since SOMEONE didn't have any I.D. on her. xD Anyway. After that, we sat around for a little bit then dispersed. Sometime later, I ended up in line to the Opening Ceremonies with a serious yaoi fangirl thinking, "Oh dear God...please help me," because she was a little loud...when Ri is with people like that, she tends to ah..."disappear"? Anyway. After a while, we got into Opening Ceremonies and listened to everyone talking, blah blah blah, people were introduced, said hello, announced they had a panel and whatnot.
As soon as Ceremonies ended, poor Vic was pretty much swarmed by his fangroup; which is cool, cause we love him. (His fangroup is called Risembool Rangers.) Since Ri seems to disappear when around loud people, she stood around for a while until she became impatient and finally tapped Vic's shoulder. He signed my latest drawing of Ed Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist (which I plan to upload soon) with the caution of, "Don't let anybody else see right now, or else we might get in trouble." xD SO yeah, needless to say, I didn't let the other Rangers see.
Uh, after that...I got some pics with Vic and Greg Ayres (who is an absolute doll, he's so nice and funny, and entertaining). I don't quite remember what came next; I think I found Bob and put the stuff I didn't need into her car and saw her off to her classes. Inside again, I found Anime, who had DNAngel playing cards, which were later signed by Vic. But anyhow, she took a pic of me in my kimono, and I took some pics of a large Edward head with Hohenheim. Then was the dealers room. I won't even divulge--okay yes I will.
The Dealer's Room was HUGE. It took up a third of the building!! As soon as you walked in, the noise was vast and almost overcoming. So, the first thing I did was buy some Fullmetal Alchemist playing cards for my sister since genius here forgot said sister's drawing for Vic. To redeem myself, I later got him to sign one of the Ed Elric cards. But anyway. I bought cards and a wallscroll there; shopped around at other places; bought the first two volumes of the manga Absolute Boyfriend from the booth Raven was working at (did you ever take advantage of those credits? You worked like TWO shifts...); then I bought a Roy plushie. :3 Along the way, I was mentally comparing prices of hats and plushies, filing away who had what and so on and so forth. After that, I was positively starving (nothing more than a Hawaiian roll for breakfast SUCKS) so sucked it up and paid the price of Con Food (which wasn't that bad here actually) for some fries and a cheese pizza...and coffee. Lovely coffee.
During my eating time, Mandy and Brittany from the Rangers, and Bob's brother (J-D) joined me. During that time, the Miniskirt Army, Travis Willingham's AKA Roy Mustang's fangroup, had a panel of their own. The other two Rangers and I were like, "DUDE! WTF? O.o Why don't WE have a panel of our own? VIC is here!" We were talking about crashing it, but then thought it'd probably be funnier if we all just piled in there and sat in the back, glaring. The "we", of course, being the Rangers.
After that, I think I strolled around Artist Alley for a little while, making friends with a guy who something for me (his main subject was hentai though *sweatdrop* but no worries! What he drew was clean; very funny. I'll upload it too.). He had a horrible cold/cough thing so I gave him one of my cough drops.
Next was the AMV contest. It was really neat; there was like 85 entries this year in contrast to 74 last year. Anyway, I met a (blond) Kagura and (naturally red head) Kyo in line for the contest. So I hung with them until Bob called me, asked where I was, said she was coming back from classes. After that, I hung with some of the Rangers before Vic's panel.
It was really funny; since the AMV contest had just taken place, the lights were off, so when we turned them back on they had to "warm up" again. So Vic's talkin' to us and I'm recording parts of it (I MIGHT be able to get my video up, if I can clean up the sound) and one particular funny thing he said was, "I'm here...to talk you guys...about anything. As long as it isn't dirty." Then half the crowd made "AWWW!!!" noises, and Mr. Guy In The Bad Controlling The Media said in his big microphone voice, "Well there goes all the GOOD topics!" (Note: Vic is a devoted Christian and tries to do his best by God.) But anyway, he told us some stories, some old, some new. Such as...the Donut Story...buahahahaha.
The Donut Story is classic and will NEVER get old to us. It goes like so...Vic was in the recording studio for Fullmetal Alchemist. The specific episode was for The Other Brother's Elric. Ed had been punched in the face, so when Vic saw that his cheek was puffy, he said, "Oh! I should probably do something or get something that makes it sound like I have a swollen cheek." So he gets permission from the folks in charge there and heads out to find something to stuff in his mouth. He accosts the poor snack machine and, with a sudden bout of inspiration, sees....dooooonnnnnuuuuuttttssssss...powdered ones. So he buys those. There's six to a packet. In the booth again, he shoves one in his mouth and says one line. Then sits there, with the slowly decaying donut in his mouth while the directors line up the words with the lip flaps. What is Vic doing while he's sitting there? Holding his hand against his mouth, trying to keep the oatmeal/porridge like substance from spewing out of his mouth! So after a little while, he's able to spit that donut out and then restocks. Repeat above.
The Donut Story.
Another story was...who knew Vic had been a cop before being involved with Voice Acting? O.O So he told us a nice story of his police days...actually, his mom told part of it. Vic was on patrol one day when a little boy comes up to him and tells him that there's fighting going on in an alley. So Vic sends the boy off and goes to investigate...in a dark, dead-end alley. (BAD idea usually.) So as Vic is walking down the alley, this shady lookin' guy is trudging away with his head down, trying to appear invisible. At the end of the alley was this little parking area type thing...in which was a beaten, bloody, and stabbed man. Putting things together like the smart man he is, Vic immediately runs after the man he'd just passed in the alley. The man ran into an arcade and TRIED to hide in one of the picture taking booths. Fruitless hiding, as pretty much everyone was looking at him. So Vic arrests him, AND the dude's brother later on. The attacked man was transported to a hospital and lived. It turned out that the beaten man had been flashin' around some big bucks. So the two arrested men became "friends" with him and then promptly beat him up and stole his cash first chance they had. In the process, they stabbed him with his own knife. Anyway. As this was the state of Maryland, they have a "three-strike-you're-out" policy. Well, this was the third offense for both men...so they were put in jail for a very loooonnnngggg time.
And now that I want powdered donuts....
Once the lights had "warmed up" again, we pretty much immediately turned them off again to watch two videos he'd made, one Real Life video to the song he wrote called "Middle Tennessee," based on the game of Dodgeball/Risemball between the Rangers and the Skirts at MTAC (a convention in Tennessee) in which "Rangers bested Skirts in a hotel parking lot". We were the SECOND crowd EVER to see it. Woot for us! It should be up on Youtube soon if anyone is interested. The other video was one he had made to the song he wrote for Fullmetal Alchemist titled "Nothing I Won't Give". Both were extremely well done; but we expected so. He DID go to college for this!
Anyway, Vic answered some questions and told more stories, such as how the "Roy Mustang is DEAD SEXY...In a miniskirt!" line came along.
Yet another interesting story...Vic had been in a panel at some convention when someone asked him to say ONE nice thing about...Colonel Roy Mustang. e.e SOOOO....Vic said in his Edward Elric voice, "Roy Mustang is DEAD SEXY!!" after which people hooted and hollared. To be funny and put a pun on dear Mustang, Vic tacked on, "In a MINISKIRT!" And thus the line was created.
But anyhow...he had his CDs there with him so they went FAST for $10 each. I bought his "piano for the quiet time" Selah CD (gorgeous music). We formed in a huge line that had to migrate to the side of the room to make space for Greggo's next panel. When I got up there, Vic signed a Risembool Ranger card, one of the Ed cards in the FMA playing desk for my sister, and the paper in the Selah CD case for me. :3
After that, I hung around with the Rangers until we, including Vic, marched across the street from the con center to Don Pablos with about 30 people! So we ate dinner there and I met some other Rangers also from Virginia (the state from which I currently hail) and we talked about Katsucon and their plans for it next year, so on and so on. Vic and Mandy came to visit us (we took up like three tables...two and a half? anyway he was at one, and I was at another, long story short) occasionally since we were across the room.
So the Ranger Dinner was fun. After that, we went outside and took pictures (which I didn't get, sadly, but I'm sure they're on the Ranger forums...). Once that was done, we all stumbled (because of the camera flashes) across the street, following the Man in Black, AKA Vic, like a cult following their cult leader. Just joking. Anyway. After that, Bob picked me up from the con center 'cause I'd had a splitting headache for a few hours. End of Day One. See below are the pics from Day One. Click on them to enlarge.
Day Two:
So everyone minus Anime, who we dropped off someplace the previous night (heh), piled into Bob's car the next morning and had to endure some freakin' awful traffic...again. But at the convention, we immediately scurried off to the Fullmetal Forum III panel, featuring Vic, and listened to more Q&As and he told us about the mini-church services he has at cons, and how they started. That particular story is interesting. Caitlin Glass, who plays the voice of Winry Rockbell in Fullmetal, is also a Christian. So she and Vic wanted to have some God-time one Sunday at a convention. Vic found a piano and just played some songs and they shared some things with each other. Within a few minutes, about fifty people had shown up! So it's like a church service for people who, if they had not been at a convention, would be at church anyway.
Some trivia: did you know that Vic played an extra voice in Fullmetal Alchemist? I'll give you good karma someone (who was NOT at the panel) can guess who in which episode.
After that was probably one of the most amusing moments of the convention. You see, I had another place to be almost immediately after the Fullmetal Forum panel, but I didn't feel like I was totally redeemed in my sister's eyes for forgetting her drawing. PLUS, I'd promised her this. Since the con security folks had practically shoved everyone out of the room after the panel was over, I waited outside of the room for Vic. He had an autograph signing set up right after. So thinking totally of my sister (okay...not completely but close enough), I walked with Vic to the signing, on the way asking if he'd be able to take a few minutes to talk to my younger sister on my cellphone. Being the nice guy he is, he said sure. So I walked with him to the signing area. One problem. Security. Here's how the mini-convo went:
Security guy: Excuse me, you can't get past.
Me: But...I'm allowed, Vic said--
Security guy: Who gave you permission?
Me: ....Vic? *duh*
Security guy: Hey Vic! *points at me* She okay?
Vic: *looks, nods*
Security guy: *I think he rolled his eyes* Fine.
Me: *in my head: Yay! then prances in after Vic*
Anyway. He talked to my sister for a little bit, which pretty much made her lifetime. When I got the phone back, she pretty much hyperventilated in my ear screeching, "I *gasp* got *gasp* to talk *gasp* to *gasp* VIC MIGNOGNA!!!! *dies*" I kid you not.
Okay. After that, I talked to Bob and Raven for a few seconds before running off to possibly my favorite panel of the entire convention: Glomping 101. The first four pictures are from this panel.
The first thing I hear when I walk into the panel room is something about a "girlfriend" "don't" "not" "glomp" and some other random words that would make most people be like, "O.o er?" But the guys showed us 21 glomps. If you want to know the ones I remember, ask me and I'll PM them to you.
During the panel, my sister called me and wanted to talk for ten million years so I told her I had to go...
After that, I really don't remember what we did. I THINK (we'd left Bob's brother at her apartment by the way) this was when we went to Applebee's, which was amusing in itself. We walked in, Bob the only one in relatively normal clothes (Anime was wearing the Krad, from DNAngel, cosplay I'd made for her for NekoCon, Raven in a shirt she'd made/modified, and me in my Samurai outfit), and proceeded to be a little loud. After our main food, we ordered dessert. No lie; it was gone...in a minute flat. *nod* It was this little chocolate lava cake thing that looked like 1/6th of a bundt cake with this chocolate syrupy stuff in the middle. The second the waitress put it on the table, Raven downright ATTACKED it not three seconds after it touched down. That included grabbing a spoon and digging in...yeah. It was gone. Quickly. Very funny.
After Applebees, we went back to Bob's apartment for a few hours. Anime and Raven watched Supernatural while Bob and I read manga and napped. J-D was watching LoTR: Return of the King.
So sometime into our space at home, we started getting ready for the rave that was being held that night (whewwww!!!) and we had to fight with someone's shirt. xD It was funny....we ended up safety pinning it later the evening. But anyhow, we ate a little bit of stuff then went back to the con center for Mari Iijima's concert. (She was both the Japanese AND English voice for Minmei in Macross.) She was so cute! After the concert, I bought (with Bob's money >>) her latest CD called Uncompromising Innocence, I think. It's really nice.
After that was the line for the rave, which was freakin' awesome. Greg Ayres DJ'ed it and it was almost more fun watching him jam out up on the stage than it was to dance or watch the ravers with their glowsticks. So we danced for two hours or so (man were we kinda sore the next day!) then finally decided to call it quits about half an hour before it ended because A) we were tired and B) we wanted to not be in the traffic getting out. End of Day Two. Below are the pictures. Click to enlarge.
Day Three:
So, all weekend, the females in the group were ALL excited about this panel on Sunday morning...it was a host club, probably modeled after Ouran High School Host Club (good series btw). So we get there in time to get good seats and there are two people up front asking us questions about Host Club. Minutes later, Greg Ayres (Mr. DJ man with the crazy hair) walks in. My first thought is: He's hosting a host club? Okay. But anyhow. He immediately hops up on a table and starts talking about Beck. "Have any of you heard of Beck?" "Has anyone ever seen or read Beck?" We're all like, "O.o ....no?" and then someone finally asks, "Uh, are you hosting Ouran Host Club?" And he shoots back almost immediately, "No, this is the Beck panel. The Host Club was canceled."
HALF the room cleared out. Greg's response? "Well, now that the riff-raff is gone..."
So he tells us about this AWESOME anime he's in that's being released in the US in July. It's on Much Music TV in Canada right now, they're up to episode 12/26. I think 26 episodes. Anyway. It's really good; if you like rock music and rock stories, this one is for you. If you have tender ears, however, maybe not so much but anyway. Afterwards, he gave most of us guitar picks with "Beck" on them, gave out posters for people who answered some trivia questions, signed stuff (he signed my badge! ), and gave out hugs.
After that, since the Dealer's Room was closing, I ran around frantically and bought some stuff, including a Roy plushie, an Ed hat, and some buttons and hairpins from Artist Alley. Since the con was coming to a close, we decided to leave so as to avoid con traffic, AGAIN.
On the drive home, we stopped at Panera Bread (see the Post-Con Pics) for some late lunch. After that was the drive back...in which my Ed hat scared the living daylights out of Bob. I was looking down in my lap at my plushies that I'd bought and Bob looks in her rearview mirror and all she sees is Ed...glaring at her. She's like, "OMG!" and starts laughing...then her brother looks back and laughs...and yes, it was funny. Anime calls it Bob's nightmarish vision. That's it for Day Three.
Post-Con Pics:
But that's pretty much it. Tekkoshocon 5! Look out for other con reports from other attendees here at your favorite writing and art website, Novice Writers!