AX 2007 - Mmmm, beer

[liri]

We start out on a bad note Thursday when we arrive at a ship bereft of cosplayers. A ship. Yes. We were staying at the Queen Mary, historic repurposed cruise ship. Some metal group was shooting a music video up on the deck as we drove up. But once I got over the "OMGWTF WHERE NO ONE HERE HAS PINK HAIR WHYYYYYY" it was really pretty neat - not because of the video up top, but because of the beautiful wood paneling and the chest of drawers with a top drawer that folded out into a writing desk. Having two twin beds was a disappointment, though.

Then we set out for the convention center and the hotel the others were in. There was a shuttle, but we decided to walk. And walk. And walk. Finally vermyx came to get us. Then we walked MORE because we were most of the way there. A passel of us went out to dinner - eleven, I think, so Erick's check-ninjaing was impressive and uncontested - and I began the beer theme of the con. In one of those "haha foreshadowing" moments, I told teh boyfriend - in all sincerity, btw - that I wasn't going to drink further throughout the con after the two beers I had with dinner.


We took the shuttle to the convention center, setting out around 10 a.m. "They really sorted out registration last time!" we said to each other. "It'll be no problem! We already have our badges!" We made our way around crowds and asked a volunteer. "Go to the end of the line," he said. "They'll divide the lines up later." We walked and walked and... yeah. We were in line for THREE HOURS before we finally heard someone with a megaphone declaring that people who already had their badges could go to a different location. We fled the teenage goth who had shaken the foundations of my world by expressing dislike for Haruhi and claimed our badge holders. It was now three p.m. - time to get a brief interval in the dealer's room.

But first we had to find it. We tried one building (which would later turn out to be the arena.) The guy there was wearing a StaffPro shirt, a sight that at that point did not fill me with seething homicidal rage. He told us to go to the next building. We did. We entered that building and were immediately told that even though there were no signs, cords on doors, or anything to indicate to us that the door we had used was unusable, it was still forbidden to enter through that door. I had to step outside, walk ten feet, and then I could enter through the CORRECT doors, which were not marked. We did so, seething (well, I was seething) so as to get to a restroom. Nabeshin was sunburned - I could tell I had a bit of sun, but I mostly I thought my problem was the heat.

We FINALLY, after trekking around the entire convention center complex, located the exhibit hall. And the day improved drastically, as Hen da Ne was clearly visible from the entrance. I obtained the two Yamaguchirow Buso Renkin doujinshi I knew of (they'd sold out already at ACen) a nice Sasu/Naru, an FF6 non-hentai (Setzer/Daryl and Terra/Edgar) and the real prize, FF6 hentai! By a professional artist! With a Locke/Terra/Celes threesome! W00T! Also Frontier's new FF7 doujin, As Time Goes By, which looks like a post-Advent Children one-off.

After the dealer's room we headed up to the other group hotel room (the one that was on the same side of the water as the convention... unlike ours) to eat and head to the AMV competition. We got word that food and drink would not be allowed in the arena where the competition would be held. By this point my sunburn was in full flame and it HURT. We got in line for the AMVs - I believe seating was supposed to start at... 8:30? 9?, but didn't even start moving until ten. I could be off on this, but it was late enough that people were starting to rehash The Year It Was Canceled. We were finally allowed in, we filed in, we waaaaaaaaaited... they showed us some ads for REALLY underwhelming stuff that looked like "Tokyopop is trying to branch out into original animation," then the MC came on. And told us HIS FUCKING LAPTOP WAS STOLEN. He had no backups, of course. We could watch the AMTV category and a couple of the AMV-makers in attendance provided some of their own productions. We got to see Engel, which is still a damn good AMV and also gave me a title for one of my all-time most popular Winamp skins, and "Bride of Berserk." We saw some good videos, and of the missing category, only comedy was really a loss - the AX panel appears to believe that drama and action are indistinguishable. This pisses me off - I like good drama videos. For that matter, I like good action videos - that Noir "Die Another Day" vid, for example. I just don't like the AX "put clips of mech combat from five different series up against a song with a heavy bass line" subspecies of action videos, and I PARTICULARLY don't like having those put in the drama category.

Regardless. This was BULLSHIT. I do not actually believe that this guy has learned nothing about backups. I just think it's REAL FUCKING CONVENIENT that bad things keep happening to his laptop. What I believe is that his laptop is alive and well and he just didn't finish processing the files in time, so he gave us what he'd finished and lied about the reason it wasn't ready. I will not be swayed on this. I hope it's true that he's gone after this, and if he is, GOOD RIDDANCE.


We stayed in our room till eleven watching Ouran. This was better than anything that would have occurred at the con itself. We headed to the exhibit hall and did not emerge all day because of the massive burnination. I put in requests for a couple of commissions and meandered around the dealers' room a bit. We met up with everyone, took off for dinner at an excellent seafood place, and in the elevator someone made the murloc sound at my Murloco's shirt. Uneventful day, pretty much. I did pick up one of my commissions - Rauny, my draenei paladin, looking a little evil. It looked like the pen slipped. I may have bought some manga - I know I finished Please Save My Earth at some point over the course of the con. Also got to try out a local beer with dinner.


Sunday was the day chosen for the rescheduled AMV competition. It was to start at 9:30. I decided not to bother.

Picked up another of my commissions - watercolor Terra (my hunter, not the FF6 character) looking AWESOME. I managed to locate Aloha Anime and found an FF6 doujin by Jesus Master (a group I've found hard to come by; they're still active so far as I can tell, but scarce. I think a lot of doujin vendors buy used doujinshi when fans clear out their shelves to make room for new stuff.) I also snagged some other things there, nothing too noteworthy, and found out that Chris Delk, the artist I'd gotten FF6 commissions from in the past, is now working professionally - I didn't buy the yaoi she'd illustrated, but I need to keep an eye out for it elsewhere. That'd explain her disappointing absence from Artist's Alley.

We went to dinner at Beer Heaven Yard House, where they have beer float desserts. (Didn't get to try one.) WE ARE GOING TO THE ONE IN PASADENA SOMETIME.

I believe this was the day the venue staff started refusing to let people walk out of the dealers' room the way they came in. Could be wrong, though.


Early in the morning...

Boyfriend: Blah blah need to check out blah blah blah.
Me: Mrfl. *rolls over to go back to sleep*
Boyfriend: I have penguins growing out of my ears.
Me: What?
Boyfriend: Oh, so you were listening!

We stashed stuff in our car, headed back to artist's alley (the third of my four commissions - this one for Kent and Lyndis - was done and looked wonderful) and then the dealer's room. We snagged four wooden swords plus a stand for $20, and I managed to get one josei and one yaoi manga, plus a free teeshirt, from Aurora press for $11 total. Then we went all OVER the freaking room looking for volume 5 of Death Note, which no one had. I'd purchased 4 on a whim earlier, then got back into the series and needed more, like right away. (Misc. note: I think I now see where the Light/L writers are coming from.)

Then it was time for the charity auction. CLAMP DOESN'T CARE ABOUT SICK CHILDREN. WTF, it's too much trouble for them to donate a fucking SKETCH? The autographed posters last time were all they could be bothered to do? WTF?! I wish I could feel like boycotting them will do anything but keep me deprived of Tsubasa, but I am one woman among a fucking SEA of fangirls.

So, yeah. No CLAMP art this time. The Mushishi people from last year had stuff donated. There was Saint Seiya and Death Note art. They brought in some good money, at least (no thanks to FUCKING CLAMP) and Erick and Will won things.


First of all, those of you who chose not to come because of Long Beach were ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. The AX staff were basically fine - sometimes clueless, not all that good at organizing people, but unlike the locals, they were not actually malevolent. There were two other groups - people in suits who appeared to be venue staff, and StaffPro people wearing yellow polo shirts. Both groups were uniformly obnoxious, rude, and unhelpful. Doors that were clearly marked as exits (and sometimes LEFT OPEN) were not permissible exits. Doors that were not marked or blocked off in any way were forbidden for use. When they caught you using one of these forbidden doors they'd screech at you even though you had no way of knowing not to use them. Food was forbidden in many places - at one point I saw suits stopping a guy who had a bottle of pop in his hand and preventing him from entering the dealer's room - apparently for no reason other than to drive sales of overpriced venue food and drink. They finally arranged access in such a way that if you left the dealers' room you had to go all the way around the convention center to get back to Artists' Alley, which was DIRECTLY UPSTAIRS from the dealers' room. They were searching people's bags before letting them in for the Transformers movie, and their attitude was such that we expected them to search bags before the AMVs too.

The back of my neck is going to peel, as is my right arm. My nose has already started.

If this is in Long Beach next year, I'm not going.

I did hit the doujin motherlode, though. It was pretty good for loot, and we ate very well. It was a nice vacation, but an infuriating con.