MTAC recap.

MTAC was fun this year, though we weren’t there nearly as much this year, since we opted not to get a hotel room to save money. We also ended up not dressing up at all because we couldn’t figure out what costumes to wear that we wouldn’t be dying to get out of after a few hours. (The purpose of getting a hotel room: to easily change in and out of costume.)

On Friday, we went to see the Kaiju Big Battel screening. Louden Noxious and the Beav, the commentators on the show, were there to provide live commentary. One of the kaiju, Unibouzu, also made an appearance. We got pictures with him and with Louden. After that, we stopped by the game room, and Ben played Smash Bros for a little while. Then we decided to go to the Build Your Own Kaiju contest. Ben had to be at work later, so we couldn’t participate, since we couldn’t stay till the end. That was a little disappointing, but we watched them build the costumes for a little while, and I took a picture of one I dubbed Mr. Butterheart.

On Saturday, we arrived just in time for the Kaiju Big Battel press conference. Once again, Louden and the Beav were hosting it. Several other kaiju showed up, including the infamous Dr. Cube, who gave Ben a “Dr. Cube’s Posse” t-shirt. After the press conference, we contemplated getting in line for the cosplay contest. We started following the line down the hall…around the corner…down another hall…through the doors to outside…down the stairs…up the sidewalk….yeah, it was long. And the room wasn’t that big, so we figured it would be rather pointless to get in line. Instead, we walked around to the front of the hotel, and then I heard someone calling my name. Confused, I looked around. Then I spotted my niece, Meagan. She was there to play the taiko drums, but I hadn’t known anything about it, so it was a very big coincidence. I went and talked to her mom for a bit, and then we watched her perform. I was really impressed! She said she messed up once, but I didn’t notice.

After that surprise, we decided to see if we could get into the room for the overflow of people trying to get into the cosplay contest. We made it in without ever having to wait in line. Unfortunately, because we weren’t actually in the room with the people on stage, the pre-teens/teens/I-really-have-no-idea-how-old-they-were-but-they-were-acting-about-12 decided they would scream insults and stuff to the people hosting the event. Especially when they were having to stall for time (like it was their fault…sheesh) or accidentally mispronounced the name of a character or something. Ben and I were getting awfully irritated, and I was really wanting to chew some people out and/or have security call their parents, but I just tried to block them out as much as I could. It was mainly one side of the room, and not the side we were on, but it was just really ridiculous. I really hope my kids will have more respect for other people than those kids seemed to. Anyway, it was hard to tell details of the costumes on the screen, but from what I can tell, there were some decent costumes. At intermission, they announced the theme for next year, of course: ninjas.

After the contest was over, we went back to the game room. There was a Smash Bros tournament underway, and Ben tried to join in, but it was a double tournament, and he won’t let me play with him, haha. Okay, I’m not GREAT at the game, but I’m not awful either. But I probably would have declined anyway, because with that many people watching, I definitely wouldn’t have been all that good. Since nothing else was really going on, we left.

Ben had to work Sunday, so we didn’t go back. I stayed at home playing with my DS all day instead. It was kind of weird being there not in costume, but at the same time, it was kind of a relief. I think we got to enjoy parts of the con that we don’t normally get to, because we are usually stopping every 5 seconds to take a picture and it takes forever to get anywhere. It was kind of nice being inconspicuous for once.

The MTAC schedule is up!

Yep, Ben and I are still going to MTAC this year. No new costumes, though, and we are not staying in the hotel. Here’s a rough idea of what we might be doing each day, based on stuff that sounds interesting to me.

Friday -
12:15 pm: Kaiju Big Battel screening
2:30 pm: Build your own kaiju

Saturday -
12:00 pm: DS social?
3:30 pm: Kaiju Big Battel press conference
6:00 pm: Cosplay contest

Sunday -
1:15 pm: Guide to electronic music

No word on what the video game tournaments are, as they are set up by Gamestop. Maybe Ben can find out early.

From Dragon*Con TV…

Re Your Brains
Wii Safety Video

Back from Dragon*Con!!

Wow, what a weekend…I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I would have liked, but the ones that I did take are up in the photo gallery already. I took some video as well, which will be up as soon as I can wade through it and edit it.

We arrived in Atlanta on Thursday evening after being stuck in a traffic jam in Chattanooga for about an hour. We located the Hilton quickly enough, parked the car, and checked into the hotel. There were already people in costume roaming about, even though the con didn’t officially start until Friday afternoon. After we found our room, we relaxed for a bit and then went down to registration over in the Hyatt. The line was really long, but it was moving quickly, so it only took us about 20-30 minutes to get our pre-reg badges.

On Friday, we went to a panel on how to build combat robots (for stuff like Robot Battles and BattleBots, etc.), which was pretty interesting. Later that day, we saw Michael Winslow, the “Man of 10,000 Voices” from “Police Academy” and “Spaceballs.” He was really entertaining and did a scene from Star Wars using only his voice, as well as Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix performances (I have all this on video). Friday night, we went to the Mystery Science Theatre 3000: A New Hope showing. Ben wasn’t finding it as funny as I was, so we ended up leaving about half way through. After that, we caught up with my friend Chris and some of his friends and hung out and walked around a bit.

Saturday morning, I meant to get up to see the parade, but was too tired. However, the Mythbusters panel was at 11:30, so I got up for that and headed over to the Hyatt. The line was crazy and no one really knew where it was, considering they had decided at the last minute to move the panel to a different room. I finally made it inside, but Ben was away at the consuite getting food, so he did not before they closed the doors. They showed a Blooper reel (which I have on video) and then did a Q&A session. They revealed some of the things that would be coming up on the show and Kari showed off some bobble head figures of the team she apparently made and would be selling at the Walk of Fame. I stopped by the Walk of Fame later that afternoon and got a picture with the three of them. Yay!!!

On Saturday night, I went and saw a showing of “The Last Unicorn” with commentary from the author, Peter Beagle, which was really interesting. I had heard that a live action movie was being made, but what I didn’t know was that Peter doesn’t have the rights to it anymore, and they are basically planning on screwing up the story. They are trying to raise money to get the rights back. When I was at the Walk of Fame earlier that day, I was going to get an autographed copy of the book (with the proceeds going toward this purpose), but he was away doing a reading, so I decided I would come back on Sunday.

After that, we were going to try to catch one of the costume contests, but the fire marshall had shut down the Hyatt because of the number of people in the hotel. When we finally got inside, the room was full. We decided to go back to the hotel and ordered pizza and watched the Dawn costume contest on Dragon*Con TV.

Sunday, Ben was going to be in the Heroscape tournament. It was at 1:00, so after eating lunch at the consuite (I’m so sick of PB&J sandwiches….), we went over to the Marriott to find out what was going on. There were about 15 people that showed up for the tournament. They played four rounds of games. Ben ended up only winning one of his four, but came SUPER close on two of them (only one guy was left on the map at the very end). If they had ranked everyone by points instead of games won, he would have come in fifth. He still got a prize of a wooden box to put miniatures in and a t-shirt.

While he was playing, I went back down to the Walk of Fame to get my autographed book. But….they were sold out!! I wanted to kick myself for not going ahead and buying one the day before and just coming back to get him to autograph it. He said that if I signed up for his email list, they would be selling them to everyone who was unable to get them at the con, autographed and everything. Which is cool, but still not really the same as having him autograph it in person. But I guess it will do.

After the tournament was over, we went downstairs to wait in line for the Whose Line Is It Anyway? finals. It turned out to be a lot funnier than I was expecting, although there were a few parts that were just kind of painful to watch because of how bad they were doing, hehe. Then we went back to the Hilton to our room and watched the Masquerade on Dragon*Con TV, where these really awesome Wallace & Gromit costumes won Best of Show for the Masters category. I wanted to run over to the Hyatt to get pictures, but didn’t figure I would have time, so I guess I will have to wait until they put out the DVD. Chris and a couple of his friends came over after that and we played several games of Fluxx before we went to bed.

On Monday, I wanted to go watch the Robot Battles, but Ben had to be at work at 5 that evening. So after going around the Dealer’s Room once, we headed out.

Overall, I had a ton of fun!

I’m leaving for Dragon*Con tomorrow!

I’m soo excited. I think I’ve been rambling on about it to anyone who would listen for the past week (okay, so maybe the past year…). My goals for the weekend are:
* to get a picture with Kari, Grant, and Tori from the Mythbusters build team
* to get an autographed copy of “The Last Unicorn”
* to meet Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca)
* to see Episode IV in Mystery Science Theatre 3K style
* to watch Ben win a Heroscape tournament
* to take a ton of pictures
* to have A LOT OF FUN!!

I will be available by cell phone most of the time and possibly by email if the Hilton really does have free wireless as they claim. If they do, I will try to put pictures up periodically.

My obligatory MTAC post…

I spent most of Thursday night running around trying to finish up everything before Friday morning. I had decided that the boots I had purchased for my Celes costume were too tall and went on a fruitless 2.5 hour search through Opry Mills and Cool Springs for mid-calf white boots with a narrow heel. They don’t exist in April. However, Charlotte Russe was having a $4.99 boot sale and I did find some brown boots that I decided to cover with white fabric. So, then I had to make a trip to Joann’s for the fabric. I also went to Target for a few things, then went by the Marriott to pick up our passes for the con. After I got home, I had to cover the boots I had bought, finish painting Ben’s knife for Locke, do laundry, sew Ben’s belt for Locke, pack, and other various little things. I need to teach Ben to sew. I finally went to bed around 2:30 am.

I got up early Friday morning and drove to Clarksville to pick up Sabrina. Then we went back to the apartment, packed up both my car and Ben’s and then were off to Franklin. We arrived and checked into the hotel. The room was ready and on the third floor, right next to the elevator. Perfect. I went with Sabrina to pick up her pass and to get a schedule. Ben and I changed into our Wallmarket costumes and then went back downstairs. We ate lunch at the restaurant in the hotel, Lorraine’s. I had some very yummy chicken, pork roast, and cheesecake.

Wallmarket Aeris and Cloud were a big hit. Everyone seemed really surprised and happy to see cross-dressing Cloud, since it is so rarely done. At 2:00, we went to the Make Your Own Movie panel. We watched a short film on how to get rid of a dead body, which was pretty funny. They explained how to do some different camera angles. It was pretty interesting. After that, we changed costumes into Black Mage and Misa and walked around for a bit. Around 6:30, we decided to make a run to Kroger to get some snacks and soda, and also went to McDonald’s for a bite to eat.

Ben and I got in line to see the Protomen at 8:30. Sabrina didn’t think she could stand up for very long, so she decided to go back to the room. Which turned out to be a great idea, since we waited…..and waited…..and waited…..and waited. After 10:00 passed, we were so fed up with waiting that we left. I have no idea what time the concert actually started, but an hour and a half late is WAY too late.

On Saturday, Sabrina and I got up and went to the con suite for breakfast. I had a yummy egg, cheese, and sausage croissant and a banana. There was supposedly a Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy photoshoot at 1:00, so we went to get Ben up. We put on our Celes and Locke costumes and went downstairs. We found the photoshoot, but it seemed to be exclusively Kingdom Hearts, and we thought we would look a little out of place, so we decided to do something else. We went to the Build Your Own Mecha Workshop, in which four teams were competing to build a mecha out of random scraps of things, like keyboard parts, circuits, aluminum foil, and duct tape. It was pretty interesting to see what each of the teams created.

Then I drove Sabrina back to Clarksville while Ben hung out with Wayne. When I returned, we put our Wallmarket costumes back on and went downstairs to get in line for the cosplay competition. While we were walking past the people who were already in line, everyone broke out in applause for Ben’s costume, hehe.

The competition was pretty good, and the skits (ugggh) didn’t go on too long. At cosplay half-time, they announced the theme of next year’s MTAC: giant monsters (like Godzilla). They also announced that Kaiju Big Battel would be there next year. Ben and I freaked out about that. If you’ve never seen it (it comes on G4 in the mornings sometimes), it basically involves people in very weird costumes fighting. It’s hilarious.

After the cosplay, we hung out with some random people and ate Domino’s. Later, Ben and I went to check out the Random Battle Group. Ben got asked by one of the participants to be a summon (he was in his Black Mage costume again) and he agreed. I got this all on video (which will be up at a later date).

On Sunday, we didn’t do a whole lot. We ate breakfast in the con suite again (I had generic Froot Loops this time) and then packed. We were planning on going to watch the Ramen Eating Contest, but didn’t make it in time, so we went home after that, since Ben had to be at work and I had to go to Sabrina’s baby shower at 4:00.

It was a pretty good weekend….I definitely can’t wait till next year.

MTAC, anyone?

If anyone else is interesting in attending the Middle Tennessee Anime Convention with us, it is still cheaper to buy tickets now than it will be at the door. The convention is April 13-15 and the theme this year is Robots. In addition to the mecha-themed events (which have yet to be announced), there will be, of course, the cosplay contest, the ramen-eating contest, martial arts tracks, video rooms, gaming rooms and tournaments (prob Guitar Hero 2, they haven’t been announced yet), a Protomen concert, and Pocky!!

I currently have a hotel room for both Friday and Saturday nights. However, I may just keep the room for Saturday night only (and just drive there on Friday since it’s only 20 mins away), depending on what’s events are going on Friday night. We can fit another 2-3 people in the room or, if you need to, you can crash at the apartment.

The current pricing is (good until March 17):
Friday only: $18
Saturday only: $20
Sunday only: $12
Any two days: $28
All three days: $32

Check out more information at mtac.net and let me know if you are coming!

All set for Dragon*Con!

I reserved a hotel room at the Hilton for D*C today, since someone so kindly posted the group code over at the Livejournal community. Someone posted the Marriott code a few days ago, but I was iffy about getting a room there since there’s supposedly all these renovations going on and no one is sure what (if anything) will be going on in the hotel and it sounded like most things were being moved over to the Hilton.

So, if anyone wants to come, I’ve got a room now and memberships are still only $50 until mid-February.

Now I just need to finish my costumes. Well, I need to finish my MTAC costumes first…

I can’t believe it’s already November.

Halloween was good. I came in first place in our office costume contest and our department won the haunted house decorating contest (well, we tied with administration anyway). You can see pictures of the office party in the gallery.

My birthday is in less than two weeks. I have no idea what the plans are, but something is scheduled for November 18th. However, this is the day before the Wii comes out, which means at midnight I’m leaving the party to go pick up the system. But I don’t really think we’ll be having a Wii-party that night, since I’ll still only have one Wii-mote. I might buy another, but seeing as they are $60 each, I doubt I’ll be getting three extras right away for all that multiplayer goodness.

Speaking of buying stuff, it’s November, so I promise not to buy myself anything other than: Nintendo Wii, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Final Fantasy III. Only cause I have all those pre-ordered. Anything else is fair game if you wish to buy me a present. And, as always, here is my wishlist. Remember to sort by priority! I’d like to buy myself a new outfit for my party but I don’t know if I’ll have the money.

I bought memberships to Dragoncon 2007 today. I was so sad about missing it this year that I went ahead and secured my place in next year’s convention. It is $45 per person right now, the cheapest tickets get and that price goes up on November 15. So if you want to go with us, hurry and get your memberships. Don’t forget, it’s $85 at the door, so $45 doesn’t sound so bad.

Back from Atlanta. I don’t even know where to start…

I need to find some setlists for the concert because I can’t remember everything that was played. The Strokes and Tom Petty both rocked, as to be expected. The biggest surprise of the evening was when Stevie Nicks came out and sang three songs with Tom Petty.

We went to AWA on Saturday for a little while. Started out in our mage costumes but got way too hot and Ben’s hat wasn’t cooperating, so we took them off after a couple hours and roamed around like normal people. Took a couple pictures. Haven’t found any of us yet, but I just got home and I think we have plenty of mage pictures as it is.

I know this is short, sorry. I’ll try to find some setlists tomorrow and give more details.

Back from MTAC…let’s see what I can remember…

Friday, I got dressed in my Miwako costume at my parents’ house and then drove up to Franklin with Samantha following me. We got there and found Ben, Chance, and Kris, who had been dropped off by Wayne. We got the hotel room and registration buttons. While the guys were getting into costume, Samantha and I took Lilli down to the Chibi Corner where she colored a nice picture of purple Pikachu. We went to the dealer’s room and I noted the price of Pocky and also that there was an Aeris figure selling for $65. I wish I had money. Lilli fell asleep after that, so we took her back up to the room and hung out. When she finally woke up, she was hungry, so Samantha, Ben, and I all went down to the hotel restaurant to grab a burger. However, Lilli was pretty cranky, so Samantha left after we ate. I wish we could have hung out longer, but I will see her next month!

We all walked around for a bit, going to the gaming room where Ben played Soul Calibur 3 and I gawked at the people playing DDR whose feet were moving impossibly fast. I took a few pictures, as you can see in the gallery, but this was the only day I carried my camera around.

I wore my Miwako costume on Friday because there was an invitation-only Paradise Kiss party happening at midnight that night. I kept getting stopped by other Parakiss cosplayers asking if I had gotten an invitation, as they were supposed to start handing them out after Opening Ceremonies at 6:15. But by 8:00, we still hadn’t received anything. Finally, around 9-10 pm, I received my invitation. Ben went as my guest and my friend Chris somehow showed up. The party wasn’t much, but we did get free sparkling grape juice.

Saturday, I woke up at 9 am and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I put on my white mage costume and went downstairs. There was supposedly a cosplay.com photoshoot going on that morning, but I never did find it. However, there was a family taking pictures in front of the atrium fountain. I wondered if they had been warned that there would be a bunch of people in costume roaming around that morning.

I went and bought some Pocky and then went back upstairs to annoy Ben until he woke up, because there was a red mage downstairs and I wanted to get our picture taken with him. The guys all got ready and we went downstairs.

Our mage costumes were insanely popular. We would move five feet, get stopped for 10 photos, move another five feet, 10 more pictures. And they were INSANELY HOT. We had to keep taking breaks from wearing them. It wasn’t so bad at Momocon because it was cool outside, but it was much hotter outside than in this time, so we couldn’t get relief just by stepping out the door.

There was a Final Fantasy photoshoot planned for 5 or 5:30. We hung out by the fountain but no one was showing up. We did see a Yuna and a very pretty Amano Aeris (I wanted a pic of her so bad, but I didn’t have my camera with me!). So we went and sat down and it was in progress when we walked back! So we joined in and everyone took pictures. Most of the people were from Final Fantasy VII, with the exception of us and Yuna.

At 6:00, we got in line for the cosplay contest. I plan on entered these contests at some point, so I like to see who wins to know what I’ll be up against, skill-wise. The guy that was hosting the event may have been the most annoying person in the world, however, and everyone in our group got fed up and left. Except me. I stayed for the whole thing cause I wanted to see who won. You can see the award winners on this site.

After that was the “rave,” but we didn’t go to that. At 11:30, we got in line for Advent Children, hoping that it was the new dubbed version since the voice actor for Vincent, Steve Blum, was introducing it. However, it was the subbed version that we had already seen. I was soooo tired at this point that I kept falling asleep during it. I did stay awake for all the good parts though!

Sunday, we got up and Ben and I put on our Mugen and Fuu costumes. He had to help me tie the obi. I have no idea how anyone does that without help! We checked out of the hotel and went to the Ramen Eating Contest. The winner was a very small 14-year-old girl who somehow downed 13 bowls of ramen noodles! Then we watched some very strange DVD about people who dress in monster costumes and wrestle?? I’m still not sure what that was, but it was pretty funny. We were going to buy more Pocky after that, but the Dealer’s Room was closed, so we ended up just leaving.

Some of the coolest costumes from the weekend were all the Star Wars people roaming around. Stormtroopers, a very tall Chewbacca, and even a remote controlled R2-D2! I got pics of Chewy. I need to find one of R2-D2. He was awesome!

Overall, it was a very fun weekend. Now I need to start preparing for AWA!!

Back from Momocon!

It was a lot of fun. I’ll try to recap.

We got to Atlanta on Saturday around 11:30 am. We went to the hotel and put on our Aeris and Zack costumes. Except Ben’s hair didn’t want to spike and my wig wouldn’t stay on. I went ahead and dropped Ben off at the con so he wouldn’t be late for the Soul Calibur III tournament and then I went back to the hotel to mess with my wig some more. I finally got it tolerable and headed over to Georgia Tech.

It took me forever to get to where Ben was because I had to stop for a picture every 5 seconds, hehe. I just wish my wig looked better from the front (i.e., not showing the front of my hair and the bangs got flat from where I kept trying to pull it forward). I ran into another Aeris, from Kingdom Hearts II, while I was looking for him as well. I finally made it to the tournaments building, and we hung out there. Ben made a good showing in the competition, but ultimately did not win.

After that, we were tired of messing with our costumes (Ben’s shoulder pads kept falling down), so we went back and changed into our mage costumes. After we got back to the convention, we went to see the costume showcase. There were some really cool costumes, unfortunately I didn’t know what half of them were cause I couldn’t really hear. Belle, from Beauty and the Beast, won first place (you can see a picture in the gallery). We hung out for a little while longer, mainly wandering around, before going to the hotel and going to sleep.

The next morning, we donned our mage costumes again and headed back. We went to a panel on voice acting first thing. After that, I bought some Pocky (yummy!), and we went to eat at Arby’s. While we were there, a man came up to me and asked me if I was with the ritual. ???? I guess my white mage costume makes me look like the leader of a cult or something. That was pretty weird.

We hung out in the board game room after that, and learned how to play a game called Spooks. It was a very random card game. Then we went to a panel on prop making that was very interesting. It was led by people who mainly worked on Star Wars costume replicas. After that, we went and played a few more random games, and then decided we should head home.

All in all, it was pretty fun. I didn’t get a chance to get a whole lot of photos, cause it was a bit of a pain to get out my camera in my white mage costume, because it was so big and I didn’t even know where my hands were half the time. But I got a couple and they are in the gallery. I also posted some pictures of our mage costumes in the cosplay section.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Been uber-busy lately.

Ben’s birthday was this past weekend. We ended up going to Murfreesboro to hang with one of his friends and to an anime convention in Nashville. Whenever I find my USB cable, I will upload some pictures.

There’s less than a month of class left. Needs to hurry up.

Been playing a lot of Sims lately, since the expansion came out a month ago. They recently announced another expansion that’s coming out in fall.

Bonnaroo is only two months away.