Have visited Benma 1/2's Spring Splash II since April 21, 2000.
SDCC 1998
SDCC 1999
AX 2000
SDCC 2000
AX 2001
SDCC 2001
AX 2002
SDCC 2002
AX 2003
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BENMA'S CHRONICLES: AX 2003 NOTE: I have signed a waver for the SPJA and Anime Expo. Some information may be omitted due to its sensitive nature. PROLOGUE: Sometime in April to TUESDAY, JULY 1ST: "TAKE THIS COSTUME AND SHOVE IT" Read TIDUS for a better description of the months leading up to AX 2003. I suppose this is more for the immediate week preceeding AX. I was so fricking burned out with this costume, and had about 3 weeks of work (at my current skill level) left to do in one week. So, I kindly ask Okaasan for help, which she does, and I manage to read quite a bit of Harry Potter, attend the Manga Picnic and such, retaining my sanity and social life, while still working on the costume (now a two-person project). Sometime on Tuesday, she finishes her part, and it's time for me to complete Tidus (to the required 95% for its AX debut). So I work. And work. And keep working... WEDNESDAY, JULY 2ND, ANIME EXPO SETUP: "HE WORKS HARD FOR (NO) MONEY" And it's another all-nighter, OF COURSE, and about 4 in the morning I finish all of the assembling. Then comes the really fun part--shaving. Now, it's really sad when a male cosplayer does a FEMALE costume and DOESN'T SHAVE, but it's another beast entirely when a male cosplayer shaves his legs (and arms, and chest...) for a MALE COSTUME. Yes, I shaved just about EVERYTHING. My mission, as you already know, was to create the Best-Damn-Tidus-Period. And if this thing is to be as accurate as it can be, I have to get a swimmer's shave. As well as a tan, but I can worry about that in the week left before Comic Con. So I'm in bed around 6 AM, and get 6 hours of sleep before I wake up and finalize preparations for AX and pack the car. I have to go over to the Anaheim Convention Center (ACC) and surrounding hotels to check in and help set up. Somewhere on the 55 between the interchange from the 91 and Katella, my car lives up to its name and starts to overheat. I pull over, and realize that the overflow reservoir lid (from the radiator) has popped off. Snapped it back on, car was smooth, up until I the time I parked it. I took 3 trips unloading all of the CRAP in my car, including TWO BOXES for ONE COSTUME. Tidus can be such a pain in the ass, but you'll find out exactly WHY I enjoy it in Saturday's section. I checked in at Convention Operations (Con Ops), and received my baggie with my staff shirt and staff polo (later to find out that there is a staff pin somewhere in the bag, you can tell how narrowly focused I am about the shirts! ^_^ ). There I find Cable Commando, and he puts me to work almost immediately (although I need to change my sandals to closed-toed shoes first). So I go back down to V-Tech Ops, and start unloading stuff, until Dementia bricks CC that he needs some help moving TVs. LARGE TVS. I'm sent to find Cassi and her setup crew, who are supposedly in LP1 or Video or somewhere, and ran into the Guest of Honor prep meeting in LP1. Only I didn't know it at the time. But that wouldn't be the first time I'd see GoHs up close and personal. I couldn't find her, but hopped over to video and grabbed some of their crew, who are only taping cables to the ground as they have done the majority of their setup. So we got up to LP2, and I helped move the first of twelve ginormous TVs. We set up speakers, then move over to LP3 to get their TVs. Some of the crew and I get dinner, where I actually meet up with Cassi, who takes everyone over to Dance to check on things. Mercenary that I am, I stayed to help set up while Raven went on a much-needed break, and found myself crawling around under stages with speaker and electrical cords. I actually enjoyed crawling around, but my knees certainly didn't. Then it was over to LP1, where we put up four big screens, and the Workshop Room (where I am staffing BTW) where we put up two more. By this time, I am completely thrashed. At around 11, the staff meeting starts, of which I don't remember much. All I know is that my Pikachu counter is about to hit 20,000; a feat which has only occured once, at SDCC 2002. It does, and I found myself appalled to learn that we have a V-Tech staff meeting at 7:30 in the morning. Good thing I start at noon so I can go back and finish my night's sleep. Well, at this point I got the bright idea to play a game of DDR, where I learn it's $1.50 for three songs. So, I can pay the exhorbitant fee and get the prestige of performing at AX, or I can save my money and not play. So I limited myself to one game, Sobakasu-Nori Nori Nori-Sakura (fail). Now that I've made myself hot and sweaty and can't sleep right away, I went up and got two chapters of Harry Potter finished (that much closer!!!). Finally I'm able to go to bed, and find that I have the entire room to myself because the other people are Masquerade, and they don't have to check in as early as I do. THURSDAY, JULY 3RD, ANIME EXPO: DAY ONE: "TAKIN' WHAT THEY'RE GIVIN' 'CAUSE I'M WORKIN' FOR A LIVING" So I woke up hella early to attend the V-Tech meeting at 7:30 in the morning (do what you gotta do!). All I remember from it is watching some anime (although that might be when we watched the one in question...?) and that they gave out a list of who exactly is in the department. So after the meeting, I want to check the status of our workshop room, where Kyubi Spite and Dementia have errands to do and will come back to finish setup there, so she puts on DDR Project 1 for me and I keep watch over the room. They're still not back during the initial time the DigiCel people come in for their workshop (which begins at 9 AM, before Con even opens). I am relieved upon their return, then (stupidly) go for a quick game of DDR, where, in the middle of Sakura, Spite says "I thought you were supposed to be sleeping? *LOL*" I promptly failed after the distraction, then went up for a 2 hour nap, only to get one as I'm too hot and sweaty to get to sleep -_-. So 11 AM rolls around, and I showered and got into my 2002 staff shirt for work at noon. We have a copic marker workshop, which Michelle and I decided to partake in halfway through, and then Percy and Clint came in with a number of other manga artists to discuss Manga 101. My shift ended at four, and I headed over to get my entire one hour of shopping in the dealer's hall. That would be it, except for a picture-taking extravaganza for 1/2 an hour on Saturday. Of course, it was better this way, because I didn't spend much $, and now have $ for Comic Con. So after cruising the entire hall, and finding nothing that really stands out (at least not in my price range), not finding the HK Chobits rips for Ucchan, and not finding anything for Maeda to sign, I run around during the last 10 minutes of exhibit hall hours looking for Animatrix stuff, and get the DVD/Soundtrack combo for $27, which is good because I now have something to get signed, and I wanted to get it at some point anyway. Plus I have a "bonus" soundtrack! My only purchase (other than a 1337 AXNY T-shirt), and I made it a good one! I cruised out for food again after dropping off my staff proxy, and since I'm working shift 4, I headed down sometime before 8 pm. There, we basically did nothing, since the setup for DDR (dance) Project 2 has already occured. So we pop in my Animatrix DVD and watch the first four shorts until 9:30, when the workshop was scheduled to start. Not exactly legal, per se, but not illegal, since we were only screening it for 3 people. Yeah, the public performance is on 35 MM, over that way... So the people are really anxious to begin DDR Project, and they busted in, surprised to find that there are NO DANCE PADS for the workshop. We started the DVD before the workshop host comes in (there's supposed to be a host?), but if we didn't we would have had a riot on their hands. Everyone decided to sit on the dance floor we had cleared, and only three girls were up front dancing along with the music. I had to police the door, keeping people from sitting and standing around it, otherwise it would have been a fire hazard. I must say that the videos were good, but not spectacular, but the DDR music was more than enough to make my shift easier. At the end, we put the tables back into place and had the room locked down. I headed over to LP1 to see how Cassi was doing, and other than trying to get hotel security to come and lock down her room, she and her room were ok. Too tired for DDR (other than failing Exotic Ethnic on Cassi's slippery MyMyMyBox pad; it was the best song out of the four on her PS2 demo disc), so I head up for bed. And I have to wake up hella early for shifts 1 and 2, so no time for Potter. But...I'm so close...just one chapter...ah hell another...oh just finish the damn thing. And I did. And it was good, but didn't say much we didn't already know. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ FRIDAY, JULY 4TH, ANIME EXPO: DAY TWO: "WORKIN' 9 TO 5" OMG why did I decide to take the early shifts? I've seen these AMVs twice already (some three times, actually...) and I want to see them again??? OK, so they are that damn good, but I'm still a freak... I found myself fighting to stay awake through today's DigiCel panel. I don't remember much, other than the sale of $800 animation software in the dealers hall for $200. Way out of my price range, so screw it. Lunch came, and was good. ^_^ The next workshop was voice acting with Crispin Freeman. This is one guy who actually does GOOD dub jobs!!! I didn't think that was possible. But between that and his charisma, I can see why the workshop attendees were going nuts. I was hoping there would be some time to do some dubbing myself, but since the AX Idol finalists were unable to do their dubbing last night, they had priority today, and the five ladies and some random guy who also competed did some voiceovers for Hellsing, I My Me! Strawberry Eggs, and a couple of more titles I don't remember. Next we had the Gonzo workshop, which means MAEDA MAHIRO-SAN!!! And Kobayashi!!! Close enough to touch them! But I remained calm and professional; after all, I was there to work. They screened the preview tape of Last Exile, which is reminiscent of Blue Submarine No. 6, but cool in its own right; and also showed artwork from it on their computer. At 5, my shift was up, and I needed to make sure I did something to stay awake, so I headed over to the ACC for the Yuki Kajiura concert. Had I known it was starting 45 minutes late (seating and stuff), I would have made a mad dash for the dealer's hall first, as I still hadn't gotten Chobits for Ucchan. But if they were sold out the first day, they certainly wouldn't get more stock for the rest of Con. So I guess that agenda item fails. Yuki Kajiura, composer for Noir and a few other series/movies, performed an amazing concert, where I was barely able to stay awake, despite the volume. Noir soundtrack=good. I haven't seen enough of Noir to make a good verdict yet, but I like what I see so far and want to see more. So tired. But I must get food. I do so, and the question is brought up, "Do I want to take a nap, or do I want to go up for my third time seeing these AMVs...?" And, after checking on the status of the Ballroom Dance Workshop, I head over to the ACC and get in line for the show. It's taking forever to seat, because security only has one door through which to let people in, and the seats, while numbered, are not sequential as you would imagine them to be. But that's neither here nor there. I caught up with Cassi on the way up, and met Ling, who works in registration, and she tells me the horror story of this Man-Faye Valentine. I could not believe my ears, but no amount of preparation could account for actually seeing it in person, and I was certain that having worn the costume once, he wouldn't be inclined to wear it again. So what did I have to worry about...? Ling was saying that because of AX, she had enough material to do a stand-up comedy routine, something I might casually mention that they add for next year's con. At the door, we are given ballots and crayons with which to choose the audience's favorite video. Better than using that stupid volume meter, which would be compromised by that freak sitting that makes the high pitched whistle. If that were the case this year, Ling brought a soccer whistle with her to spike the volume on her own. That would have been funny! They are running through the 2001 AMV contest while seating continues until 10:30, an hour and a half behind schedule but at least they waited to start until EVERYONE WAS SEATED...*cough* masquerade *cough*. So we run through the videos again, and this time I choose 1000 Years (Sting, Final Fantasy X) over Everything You Want (Eva) for drama. In action, it was a toss-up between Eternal Damnation (Hellsing) and Mitternacht (Hellsing, Blood, Vampire Hunter D). Comedy of course was swept by Chibi Things That Kill, with Leaves of Happaness being second (and sing-along! ^_^ ). AmTV was between Utena and Euphoria, and I believe I picked Euphoria this time. Although these were clearly the best videos, Without GTO, Vanilla Vash, Hindi Sad Diamonds, Can't Stop the Rock, Questionable Gender and Hound Dogs were all amazing in their own right. There weren't any videos I didn't really like; the contest was AMAZING. After the contest, PiratingAmes and crew caught up with me, and Ling went off to her room for sleep. I'm debating between sleep and food, and food won out so I could spend some time with my peeps. We walked over to Denny's and grubbed while debunking the AMVs, including Questionable Gender (I My Me! Strawberry Eggs, Dude Looks Like a Lady), which looks an awful lot like the video of the same anime and song that Ames was working on. Even down to the lesser sourcing quality of the first part of the video I had been shown before. After eating, we headed up to their room, where the bathroom still wasn't cleaned after Ames clogged the toilet LOL, and we scoped all the pictures he'd taken of cosplayers during the first two days of con, as well as calling up Happatai's "Yatta!" video. At 4:30 I finally go to bed. SATURDAY, JULY 5TH, ANIME EXPO: DAY THREE: "AIN'T GOING DOWN 'TIL THE SUN COMES UP" Good news: I don't have to wake up early to go to work. Bad news: I have to wake up earlier than desired to get into Tidus. Must...get...sleep... About 10:30, I'm awake and showering, call Kero, who is coming to help me with my costume prior to the Greenwood people get-together for lunch (ha ha ha). The only thing is, he and his father want to scope the dealer's hall for an hour, so they won't arrive until 11:30. I begin styling my Tidus hair myself, and get it decently together until they arrive. Kero trims some hair for me, and lends me his face adhesive to attach my earrings. At 12:20, I'm in costume and ready to go to our NOON meeting. So I call Piroko on Kero's cell, and she doesn't sound too pleased. I had my picture taken quite a number of pictures on the way over, including fangirl #1, who takes my picture, sees the back of my costume when I'm looking for Piroko, and says "you even have a tag written in Spira font! I LOVE YOU!" and proceeds to take a picture of the back of my costume. To my surprise, I found only her and Nester sitting at the meeting place; everyone else left ten minutes ago because they didn't want to wait any longer. Thanks a lot! Jason took a killer picture of me in the middle of Tidus' Energy Rain overdrive, but Piroko needs to go and stand in line for tickets. I go and find her, to have some weirdo, not in costume, challenge me to a mock-fight. I tell him Tidus doesn't go into battle without his sword. And then I start a Sphereshot, and he's like, "what the hell are you doing?" What a retard. Piroko's friends came to retake their place in line, so we headed back out. Then I'm called back, get my picture taken, and then am asked for a hug! *GLOMP* I've got two fangirls!!! Then Piroko needed to find some people, and left again. At this point, Kero (It's Gendou!), his father and I are starving so we go over to Pizza Hut at the Marriott, only to find they're out of large dough (dumbasses) so we have to get three personal pan pizzas. After eating, with 80% of my drink remaining, that I'm going to drop it off in the Workshops room, so I ask them to hold on for a minute. Upon entering the Japanese Dance Workshop (which is thankfully between sessions for ease of movement across the room), Johnice tells me she needs a break for about 5 minutes, so I tell her to tell the tall guy in the Gendou costume that I'll be 5 minutes. She came back, told me she couldn't find him, and I leave once again, only to find that there is no Gendou in the hall. I thought to myself, "Well, they're smart people, and I'm a smart person, so we'll figure out something" and I headed for the dealer's hall to try and catch up with everyone else, thinking that Kero went over there already. Well, he's not, but I did run into JP, Nommie and Tall Nick, who wants to take his picture with Cleopatra, but is too chicken to ask to take the photo. Actually, the first issue was the money, where he only had $3 of the $5 necessary, but Nommie anted up the other $2 to make up the difference. Upon hearing this, I offered $1 of my own--now he's making a profit--and declared that we were marching straight to her booth (of course, as fast as my Cosplay Tango will allow--step, step, flash) and getting his picture taken with her. We got to her booth, backed off a little bit so TN could work his mojo, and when the person talking with her was done, he asked and received his picture. Only she decided to put her leg up on him for the pose, and he decided to PICK HER UP for the shot! Afterwards, we're saying that OF COURSE he'd be nervous if he wanted a picture like THAT! LOL As we're heading to the exit for the ONE PIECE photoshoot, which Nommie and Piroko are a part of, I found an attractive FFX-2 Rikku to get my picture taken. I gave her the Blitzball to hold (because I've given her enough items to make her like me the most and throw the Blitzball up during my Blitz Ace overdrive), and flashbulbs went off all around us, not just from our respective cameras. So the One Piece gathering is going well, and Piroko is looking good as Nami, but turning to my right...the horror... My eyes...my poor eyes... It's...Man-Faye O_o ... -_- ... WHAT ON EARTH possessed this sicko to dress up as Faye Valentine??? TWICE!!! I may be scarred for life, never able to watch Cowboy Bebop again. This freak of nature had hair. Lots of it. All over his body. I mean, I SHAVED FOR A GUY COSTUME, HE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS SHAVE FOR A GIRL COSTUME!!!!! The next 1/2 hour waiting for the One Piece photo shoot to end was spent avoiding looking in the general direction of Man-Faye. I found an attractive Lulu cosplayer to hold my Blitzball for a photo together, so now it's accurate to my FFX game saves, with Lulu throwing Tidus the ball during Blitz Ace. And then... It happened... If I thought Man-Faye was horrible from the front, from behind is just...gnarly. A big hairy man-a$$ is hanging out of the bottom of the shorts. I run back to my crew as fast as possible and barely manage to avoid hurling while telling them DO NOT look in that direction from that angle. I have seen scary movies, but everything pales to the horror of Man-Faye. Piroko and the One Piece crew began a game of One Piece Uno, but I was about to turn into a pumpkin, so I needed to head back over to Workshops for my two late shifts, with no time to change out of Tidus, but that's ok. As long as it doesn't distract from the panels at hand, there won't be a problem. The Aoki Tetsuya panel is surprised on us, or location moved, or what have you, so I'd be surprised if 10 people were actually there for the workshop. Kero & his father came in to say their goodbyes, and ended up staying for the workshop. Pirating Ames and crew came by inbetween Aoki and the second Gonzo panel, so we took a couple of pictures, and I ask them if they want to stay for the workshop, at which point Raven had come in and said that they would need to wait in line with the rest of the people. Of course, I had known that they were already leaving for food, so I was only being polite... So Maeda is in again ^_^ with the Gonzo panel, and this time they go around discussing people's illustrations. They showed the Last Exile preview (again), but our plea to get them to stay longer (and thus get people away from masquerade, which is a nightmare as far as lines and seating go, just ask security) is rebuffed, they had only planned on two hours. Even though they brought the check tape and DVD of Last Exile 1-2, which debuted in the US at AX (not including fan subs), they didn't want to show it. They did, however, leave it behind when they left... So we get the Marriott people to arrange a dance floor once again for DDR Project 1 (3rd Mix), and hang loose for about 1 1/2 hours (I'm sure you can add two and two together by now). This time, people actually danced (!) for the DDR Project, and Spite was in and out of the room to hand out prizes for the AMV winners at Masquerade (she was in and out on Friday to obtain them). There was about 30-40 minutes left in the allotted DDR Project timeslot, so we decided to put on DDR Project 2 (2nd Mix) again, but most of the people had left. I cleaned up the room and called Marriot to lock up the room, and Cable Commando came back just in time for us to head over to Con Ops, change the batteries in our bricks, and think of what to do next. We met up with Vicky and some other staffers, talked about everything from leather glue for Tidus (that exists?!?) and Masquerade starting before everyone was seated for it *grumble* We finally get up to Con Ops and switch out the bricks, and Cable says he'll take the Workshop brick up to his room since both Spite and Johnice are in the three-room block with him and the crew. At this point, communication over the brick is something to the effect that the SD room is flooding from above and V-Tech ops needs to be moved to LA. So Makie asks if it's clear water or gray water, and it's clean water so he goes over to help move. I broke off, to find Trunks loading stuff into the trunk of his car, and Darryl and the Twins are planning on going over as a group to Denny's. I'm invited to join, and we chatted in the room for a while, waiting for the Twins to get out of their Masquerade costumes. Eventually we made it to Denny's, and ran into Tiffy, Kelly, and the rest of the crew. We talked and ate about a wide variety of stuff, and Darryl is hella funny! He could also do standup comedy. But it got to be 4 AM, and I had to wake up at 10:30 the next day to get ready for checkout, so another six hour sleep day in the books, which wouldn't be a problem if I were still accustomed to that sort of thing. But I'm not. SUNDAY, JULY 6TH, ANIME EXPO: DAY FOUR: "(NOT) LAZING ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON" I rolled out of bed around 10:30 in the morning, showered, packed, and called Ames down, because he and his peeps needed to store stuff in my car, since check out is at noon, but con doesn't end until 3. So I told them if they wanted storage space, they'd need to help me carry down all of my crap. So after a trip up to my room, I've got everything (and found my sunglasses, thank God), and give them my doorkey so that they can come and get their stuff without having to find me breaking down...somewhere. I saw them off, checked out myself, and headed over to the Workshop room for the final day of during-con work. I find that we've got no food, and head over to get some, only food is elsewhere. Going to Con Ops I caught up with Raven and Michelle, who told me where food had migrated to. We pick it up and finally head back to Workshops to stay for the rest of con hours. The Gonzo-Kobayashi panel, which is supposed to be an illustration contest with awesome prizes, gets a late start because Copic Markers are late with their part of this hybrid workshop. Granted, those that drew pictures on the spot needed time to get the outlines done anyway, HOWEVER, that was NOT kosher. Walking around the room, I see a myriad of AMAZING drawings; unbelievable that they were produced in the (extended) 2 hours alotted for drawing. Then Kobayashi, already going around the room to offer advice, had the illustrations collected, and showed them to the audience on the TVs while critiquing them. The best drawn/his favorites were going to receive cool Gonzo prizes, including illustrations by Kobayashi himself, produced at con! Of course, I couldn't enter because (1)I can't draw and (2)I'm staff. While selecting the winners, we screened the Last Exile promo, making that the 5th time I'd seen that part of the first episode at con. Now AX is over, and it's time for breakdown. We had finished the panel late, but Vid Cam was expidient in arriving at our room, and broke down in no time. The only thing left to do was wait for people to come and get our big screens, so I made the mistake of heading into LP1 to see if they needed help. They didn't, but Raven over at the Dance did, so I took the lost-and-found from LP1 over to Con Ops, retrieved my Maeda-signed Animatrix DVD case, and headed for Dance. Over there I crawled around under the stages again, got to wrap some cords, and played rousing games of J-Rock tape ball with Michelle. Reg, next door, then needed some help, so we did a little bit of moving from reg to the green room. Raven got a select crew back from the reg excursion to help carry his computer stuff (which there was quite a bit of, actually) and took it to the rooms, then headed down to Dead Dog. Well, that was freezing, so I retrived my jeans and camera from the car (as well as my door key hidden underneath. After about an hour, hour and a half of relaxing and talking, we are alerted to the fact that Spite and Johnice are STILL in Workshops. I said, "How could that be, the reason I left was because we were broken down, that room should have been cleared hours ago!" So I head back to Workshops *grumble* so they're able to eat and drink, and we end up talking for about an hour and a half. Cable and Devan show up, and we take the fan circles off of the handles to play another game: Fan discus/frisbee! We ended up throwing for a good hour, with Cable and I tied for the most backroom shots (3), but I had a really good one that went beyond the tables, almost into the chairs. Of course, I was also the first to slam into the stage (D'oh!), but it was a good way to kill an hour. Somehow, we ended up with 3 bricks, so Cable saed he was going to Con Ops to turn them in so they can put them away. At this point I decided to go to the arcade, where I start busting DDR like a madman. I think there were 3 other staffers there that could have been my equal on singles, but I was pretty much the only person playing doubles, including failing Tsugaru *ahhhhhhhhhhh* and Xenon, but passing 20, November (Heavy). On singles I might have been able to pass Sakura if I wasn't soooooooooooooo tired, but passed Paranoia Eternal Heavy and Tears. Yes, I am a DDR Freak. So it's getting late, and I told Cable I had to drive home, but he graciously offered to let me stay the night up in the rooms. So I took him up on the offer and headed down to LA. I confirmed my lodgings with Spite, then we went to move the cars. The gate was up, and away we went, saving a grip in parking fees mwahahahahahahahaha. We re-parked over at the Marriott, and went up to the room where he edited a picture. When everyone came up, we talked until about 3, when half the people had zonked already and the other half were ready to. MONDAY, JULY 7TH, ANIME EXPO LOGISTICS: "GOT TO MOVE THESE REFRIGERATORS, GOT TO MOVE THESE COLOR TVS" I woke up late, took a shower, and decided to head down for some more time in the arcade. Of course, when I got there, they were starting to disassemble the DDR machines *grumble*, but I got my fill of that the previous night and still had logistics to take care of, so the less energy spent, the better. Michelle was over playing Drummania, and I decided I'd try my luck at Guitar Freaks. I was getting decent, beating 40-level songs, and I think one 50, but then this guy came in who absolutely blew me away, getting As and Ss. I was like O_O. He even knew the codes to get the same notes for both sides of the screen! I also played a little bit of Drummania, with its ridiculously high learning curve, and figured out that all the good songs I want to do are too easy on basic and too hard on intermediate. So I think I'll leave that to Piroko, and just hook up with her in session mode while I play Guitar Freaks. So the plan becomes such; that Brian, Dementia and I are to go to the office, unload the truck, unload the pallets so as to recycle them, go get lunch, and head back to the ACC, Hilton, and Marriott load the rest of our stuff. Well, it takes longer than expected, even though I was "hauling ass" as Dementia put it, and we have to keep the equipment another day. We get back, and lunch has pretty much become dinner. The crew that just did all the work takes a break/nap, while the crew that was left at ACC picked up the pace. Only certain people in a certain department weren't doing their fair share, because their dept. head had gone to handle other matters. We basically kick them in the a$$ and they start working, although not very well (or very quickly.) Finally, all of the stuff is unloaded from the Con Ops area (after a trip down to the dock to retrieve the pallet jack that was abandoned even though it can still be used as a carrier...) At this point, Eric, Dementia (the forklift stud) and I returned to the office to unload a second time. It went as quickly as possible, and about an hour later we got over to Hilton and loaded the dance gear. Returning to the Marriott, we loaded the final V-Tech stuff (quietly I might add) and at 11:30 we had FINISHED LOGISTICS! At least in terms of loading. But considering that last year there were less people working on it, and the drive to the office was much farther, it took until Thursday for everything then. So we saved Dementia two days and a lot of hassle this year! But there really should be a separate logistics team/department...maybe next year? Now there is some talk of going to Denny's for dinner, and I'm certainly not going to oppose that. So we pick up Dementia in the Green Room, and a crew of 6 goes over to Denny's, where unspeakable (but funny!) horrors occured which I dare not mention. Time for sleep again. TUESDAY, JULY 8TH, AX LOGISTICS REVISITED: "I GET KNOCKED DOWN, BUT I GET UP AGAIN" After eating breakfast, it was finally time to load up the cars and check out of the hotel. We found a funky swimsuit and some towels left in the room, and were like WTF? but other than that the process went ok. We used our "get out of jail" cards and took two cars back to the office, with Dementia driving the truck. We unloaded the final stash of V-Tech equipment, and he went off to drop off the dance gear. A short time later Brian and co. came back from their quick side trip to LA, with food! Beef sandwiches with the spiciest damn mustard that's ever burned my mouth. They were really good without the mustard, but I needed an entire cup of water after making the mistake of putting the mustard on. So we were hanging out, and Dementia returned this time to grab someone to follow him in their vehicle so he could return the truck. More hanging out, and upon Dementia's return I decided it would be a good idea to get a picture of him doing donuts on the forklift, but before the other offices in the area could clear out, Cable and Michelle show up and ask me for help moving. Well, they were getting Raven and Johnice the next day, and scheduled for Dementia on Thursday, so I figured if I didn't help today, I'd go home and never would, so I helped them out and they offered to buy dinner! MMM FOOD SO GOOD AFTER TIDUS DIET!!! Off to the apartment in Garden Grove, and we moved stuff for about 3 hours, and even though I thought I wasn't much help since we didn't move _that_ much stuff over, they assured me that I was. We went over to Islands for some good burgers I've never had before. And wow was the Hawaiian good! As were the cheddar fries, and watching extreme sports videos on the tvs...including some really freaky flubs (although I still like this year's Winter X Games half-pipe skiing "chunk" best, where the guy came up on the side and was embedded standing on the top of the pipe LMAO). We headed back to the office so I could get dropped off, and had to go through the hotel's parking because the inbound street had been reversed. Now Spite needed to make a run to the store, so I took her and got gas during the same trip. Supposedly had four gallons left, but it was running extremely rough with the deposits in the bottom of the tank, and I needed gas for the drive home, anyway. Upon returning, we three settled down with two episodes of Noir, then I grabbed some Coke for the trip home (caffeine was such a staple this week that I almost became immune to the single-servings of it). 7 songs later I'm home, to a ridiculously hyper-happy dog, unloaded, and started writing these journals (which would take until Friday) and SLEEP. And thus, this year's kick-ass-Anime Expo 2003 came to a close. Guess it's time for Benma's AX 2003 agenda check: 1. DDR like a madman: Passing three catas, almost breaking Sakura? I'd say that's a big 10-4. 2. Watch some sort of anime: Check. 3. Manage to staff 8 hours a day while making time for three separate groups of friends: Check, barely... 4. Spend time taking cosplay pics with Piroko: Fail. If it were only my #3, it would have been fine, but two people trying to manage their own groups doesn't make for much synchronicity. 5. Get Chobits for Ucchan: Fail. 6. Help put on a great con: Check! Try not to do things last minute as a team...well, since this usually refers to cosplay, I would have to say that it actually worked. But all things considered, I don't think this item even applies this year. So, 4/6; I'm slipping a bit. I'll have to step things up at Comic Con. owari Benma 1/2's Spring Splash II (BSSII) (c). Anything Goes School of Masquerade Arts (AGSMA) (c). All content, including pictures, on this page (unless otherwise noted) is copyright to BSSII or AGSMA, and cannot be used without prior permission. This page hosted by Geocities. Get your own Free Home Page |