Really long, boring AX recap

For those of you who haven’t heard I ended up going to AX all 4 days, because my sister needed me to help run her balloon dart booth. Because the rest of her people were boys, and you can’t trust boys to run anything!

I was thinking about how strange anime conventions are. I don’t know much about conventions in general. But it seems to me that a bunch of Americans running around dressed in costumes from cartoon from another country is a bit strange. Do they have anime festivals in Japan? If so, are the people equally crazy? I don’t think they have regular cartoon conventions in America. But I guess it’s not too different from a generic sci-fi or fantasy or comic book convention. It’s just that anime as a genera runs such a broad scope. It’s not like you like one and you like them all… But enough of that. On to the recap:

Friday: wore my Jem shirt and at some point in the middle of the day had a conversation that went like this:
boy: What’s Jem and the Holograms from?
Me: Jem! and her friends are the holograms. Ahhh, you’re just too young. And I’m so old.

arrived earlyish, couldn’t get my badge because the summer festival wasn’t ready. Sat down to pout and had a girl decide to sit down and tell me her life story, which involved her mom demanding lots of info so she wouldn’t hook up with people in hotel rooms. I couldn’t tell how old she was, but it must have been 17-19. I wanted to make lots of comments about anime geeks and not having sex, but I figured that would only make her talk more. Thankfully she left.

The summer festival was not run well, my sister snuck us into the room we needed to be in and we found that while we had been scheduled for balloon darts, and they provided us with balloons and darts, we were missing a dart board. The boys, being good at hunting and scavenging, rigged up a cardboard box as our dart board and it worked out much better than I would have imagined. Feeling cocky about this, the boys tried to argue with me about the prize threshold but I won out in the end. And it turned out really well. 3 darts for $1, pop 2 balloons to win.

After this I escaped to watch Magical Meow Meow something or another. It was adorable. And the only show I saw this weekend. I wish I stayed for the 2nd episode, but I was worried about leaving the boys with the booth so early on. I totally could have stayed, because we had so little business that whole day.

Later that afternoon was the iron hat competition. Lydia ended up entering (and winning, of course). This was lucky, because I saw a girl from my classes, and we talked about really geeky library things for 30 mins. I wish I took a picture of Lydia winning hat. I’m not sure anyone did, and I’m sad. Lydia thinks her secret weapon was her rocket ship hat (See Kenny’s pictures)

The end of the evening, I somehow lost track of everyone, and no drinking was to be had. I ended up popping into the Inuyasha movie (subbed) which was weird because I’m used to it being dubbed on cartoon network. But my dad called, and wanted to leave. Which was lucky, because the killer butterflies were starting to freak me out.

Saturday: I got the whole day off from the booth. I was Strawberry Shortcake. It was adorable. And parents loved me. Kids loved me because I was cute, but the parents loved me because they remember retro Strawberry. And who knew my Pupcake doll would come in handy 20 years later.

In the morning I brought everyone ice cream. Chocolate with Cocoa Pete’s malt chocolate chunks. I was worried about melting. But since my ice cream freezes so hard, and I kept it in a cooler for the drive, it turned out to be the perfect consistency. And apparently, there’s nothing like donuts and ice cream for breakfast.

Saturday involved a lot of Lydia changing clothes, I mean lots. But following her around kept us all busy, and kept Kenny from having to stand in the retarded line to buy a pass. There’s not much better than watching all the crazies milling about. Especially when they’re all dressed up. And boy were they both crazy and dressed up.

There was also drinking involved. Bacardi raspberry and 7up. Yum! And it’s only 35% alcohol, so it’s perfect for a light drink (if that’s what you’re into). Unfortunately my cheap leg avenue costume had ripped at the seam by drinking time, and strawberry shortcake was not drinking berry flavored alcohol. I changed into my Alice in Wonderland tank.

Sunday: Wore my sleeping beauty ringer t-shirt. I spent most of the day at the booth. I have to give a quick shout out to my fried chicken strip salad from Carrows. It was really good! Sarah had lost her badge, which I used as an excuse to start drinking early. We finished the last drops of Bacardi, and started on the Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville Key Lime tequila. (also 35% alcohol and quite refreshing). I invented my own margarita like drink: 2 parts tequila, 1 part triple sec, a dash of lime juice and a dash of sierra mist. We also drank Torrance’s own Red Car Brewery porter (my grad present to Zack) I felt bad for starting without Lydia, but she was stuck in the masquerade room for hours. And drinking really is the best way to enjoy an anime convention.

So, Lydia and her little Bleach friends won the masquerade, and more drinking was done. I’m actually very sad I didn’t get to drink with her lion and fox friends. (or even realize that she had lion and fox friends until the next day)

Monday: Wore my cat sushi shirt. Balloon darts is closed. The kids made over $300, but only a drop in the bucket toward the new projector they need (because the old one was stolen). This leaves me free to stand around and baby sit people in large animal costumes.

Now, Lydia has been talking about the Bleach show for like ever. And I know she likes it, but she’s never mentioned that I should watch it, or that I would actually like it. But I have to say her friends fox and lion were fantastic, and I will look into the show. The lion I had met before, and I knew who was inside. But I hadn’t met the fox before I saw him as a fox. As the day wore on, I started to believe he actually was a fox. It was weird. Leave it to Lydia to have super cool animal friends. It was like beauty and the beast or something. I was ready to start making out with him in hopes that he’d turn into a prince, or something.

After I had helped guide the lion and fox around for a while they finally relented and hugged so I could get a picture. It was adorable, but my picture didn’t turn out very well. I do rather like the earlier picture of them back to back though.

We had lunch with Kenny and Stephanie, and many presents from Japan were had. See the pictures of my Hamtaro carnival. Yea for Japan and small, cute things!

After lunch Kenny and Stephanie left. Lydia went back for more Beach pictures and the rest of us tagged along. Eventually we found the Bleach group again, and they were mobbed by the pictures again. Lydia and her car ended up leaving, while I stuck with my new friends, fox and lion. There was a rousing rendition of crazy anime character duck, duck goose happening just down the way. It was pretty surreal. But then I had to go. I was sad to say goodbye to the Bleach crew, who definitely had to be crazy to make all those suits. But they were awfuly cool crazies. I hope the lion and fox can come to Lydia’s birthday party.

Overall I ate pretty poorly this weekend. And I’ve sworn off junk food for the next few days. Unfortunately, Neopets happy meals start up again on Friday. I may start taking advantage of the healthier options. Also, my skin is not happy. Not only did I get a small sunburn, but I’m breaking out. I think it’s contagious, from being around all the geeks.

Things I learned this weekend:

1. I need to start dressing like a grown up.
2. I am a grown up because I need more sleep than I used to.
3. I drink like much more of a girl than I’m willing to admit to.
4. Girls really do take too long to get dressed.
5. Foxes are cool!