Anyway John Con was interesting. It was a small little affair, probably the smallest show we have ever done. It felt kind of like pre-gaming for Otakon considering that it was in the same area. There was something quaint about how small it was. Perhaps it was the fact that its small nature made it very flexible when all was said and done. DO XIII was basically able to walk right in and… do whatever they wanted, and that always makes for a cool convention.

Here is just some of the awesome we supplied Johncon with.

1. Brawl+
2. BlazBlue Continuum Shift
3. Magic the Gathering Cube Draft
4. Full Anime Room takeover with Durarara and Summer Wars
5. Fanfiction: From Mary Sue to Shakespeare
6. Spoiler
7. Broken Sky
8. Much Much More

However, the coolest thing was by far was the fan-fiction contest. We got six entries of pure, high-grade, mock-worthy fanfiction, and the judging was a hoot! Me, Rob, and Mike took point but everyone contributed. It was amazing, and we had people laughing on the floor. We would love to do this again. Not only was it majorly funny, but it gave good concrete examples of what NOT to do in fanfiction. Hopefully, we can strike a deal with some cons to let us do this again.

Anyway, it was a good, but exhausting weekend. Hopefully next time we will be set up in a hotel closer to the con.

I leave you, oh wonderful fans who may or may not like the Insane Clown Possie, with this image.

Hahaha, they are dropouts.

OK, so yeah. Disorganization XIII actually got down to Anime USA on Thursday, the day where you get to have a con before a con … or at least we would have if we didn’t spend seven hours on the road mostly lost in D.C. having to pee our brains out! I don’t know whose bright idea it was to make a road who has exit numbers going up to ten, and then down from ten again at an arbitrary point … but it is a stupid idea … please die in a fire.

After I expelled urine from my bladder sack, most of Thursday was filled with unpacking, getting drinks at the bar, and playing dominion with some awesome guys we met (Big Will and Kayen we are talkin about you). Later in the day, we browsed through the Hyatt’s porno collection. Oh we didn’t order any, we just laughed at the descriptions. One of the descriptions said “If you watch porn to get aroused, this is the title for you.” I wonder what else you would watch porn for? Background noise?

FAST FORWARD!!!

So Saturday, the meat and potatoes of the con. Saturday morning my sinuses were killing me, partially because I spent a night sleeping on a cot with a bunch of sweaty guys, and partially because I had already felt the beginnings of con plague setting in. Luckily enough, I had been taking 25 times the recommended daily amount of Vitamin C for several months and my immune system was made of steel.

I woke up first, as I always do for some god forsaken reason, off little more than 3 hours of sleep. I totally should have drank the night before to help with sleepy times, but I didn’t, because I am a moron. After tiptoeing around my roomates, I got dressed and decided to stop downstairs to check in on the NASFIC table.

NASFIC is a convention that will be held in … some-ass place down in the south … one of the Carolina’s? I don’t know google it. Anyway its basically World Con when World Con is someplace else. A couple of our friends were running the NASFIC booth, and the day before they offered to let us use their projector if absolutely need be in return for us hanging out with them. We ended up not needing their projector, buuuut I hung out with em anyway, because they are cool and awesome for offering to help us in the first place. I played and won two games of dominion (SCORE) and later met up with some other DO XIII members to play some Magic: The Gathering, in my favorite format THE CUBE!

Several hours and discussions about the merits and flaws of Mind Twist later, it was panel time. Our first panel was Fanfiction: From Mary Sue to Shakespeare. Now, we didn’t get as many people as we could have, due to the misprinting of our panel title “Mary Sue and Shakespeare” on the signage. However, we mostly yelled at people in the hallway to come in and it worked well enough.

For some reason, I was very tongue tied in Fanfiction this year. My jokes were pretty much all falling flat, and I seem totally and utterly incapable of furthering the discussion. I can’t even really blame it on being interrupted like I did with the RPG panel. For some weird ass reason, I actually just ended up coming down with stage fright. Weird. I’m fairly certain it was because I was afraid something was going to screw Spoiler up. Luckily enough, Rob and Sherna TOTALLY came through for me. They really took the panel by the horns and kept everyone interested the whole time. Sherna (number DD) is INVALUABLE on that panel, and I am happy to announce she will be continuing her work on the fanfic panel in coming cons. Way to be girl!

I left Fanfic early to check up on the spoiler room, which, unfortunately, did not have a projector or speakers in it … DOH! Luckily enough it only took a short run down to the gaming room to fix this. Spoiler went of wonderfully. Originally there wasn’t a whole lot of people in the room, but as expected the riot started, the line formed, and we filled the place to the brim. The Spoiler crowd at AUSA was amazing, AMAZING! They all got into our comedy and we LITERALLY had people rolling in the isles. Once again, Uncle Yo did not show up *GLARE* but I’m sure any of our adoring fans can tell him how much we kick ass. I think it is a testament to us that we went up against… Joe the anime comedian … or some shit, and still managed to have the biggest draw of the time slot.

Spoiler the After Party went down great too. Scott’s MTG spoiler was well received. Kudos to him for trying a silent spoiler bit, but I think he will be even funnier when he speaks. We did a lot of our older stuff, and had a good amount of fans stay to watch it. We really did want to have cookies for you guys, buuuut that didn’t pan out.

A weird thing has started to happen since our last Spoiler show. Fans, from all conventions actually, have started sending in their own Spoiler bits they want us to read. Yes, it is true that if you send us a bit that is funny, we will do it, but, and no offense here, first and foremost it has to be funny. There is a fine line between roasting something or someone and just being mean without humor. Remember that! Also, a couple fans have been disappointed that we didn’t read their stuff, but they sent their stuff to us a few days before the convention. Guys, just letting you know, we need at least a month to edit and rehearse this stuff, so sending us a spoiler bit on Friday does not mean we will be able to do it on Saturday. We love you guys, we really do, and do keep sending your shit in, but remember we take the greater portion of a year to make Spoiler work in front of an audience, so it will take us more than a couple days to get your bits to work as well.

Saturday night after our panels was like a gigantic weight was lifted off of our shoulders. We went to a diner, where we got some of the shittiest service ever. SHITTIEST SERVICE EVER! They overcharged us, didn’t cook our orders right, some of our orders were undercooked, and they just plain gave us attitude. Note to self, go to the strip on 23rd to eat from now on. It’s gotta be way better than anything local. After we spent forever arguing with them just got get a friggin cup of barbecue sauce, we headed back to the hotel.

It was late at this point so we needed to spend our time wisely. How would we spend it … MORE DOMINION! Yes, we got the crew together and went up to the board gaming room to meet some random people who were playing werewolf. We didn’t join in, mostly because we burned ourselves out on werewolf in college. We played a few games of Dominion, introducing some new players to the game along the way, and then made a break for the rave.

We caught DM Ashura’s set which skyrocketed us straight into heavy BPM techno. This was a shame, because I am actually a fan of DJ Luminal’s electro-house, which he would have played if it weren’t for the fact that Ashura already had the house wigging out on the heavy shit. I danced my ass off, but mostly felt awkward. I didn’t bring my glow spinners, so I had very little cool glowy shit to do in front of people. I stayed for about an hour and then broke off to see Afro Samurai Resurrection with a couple of my friends.

Unfortunately, I didn’t make it through the entirety of Afro Samurai Resurrection either. You see, it was late … it was REALLY late and we wanted to pursue the lovely convention tradition of getting drunk and telling stories. We left a couple of our members behind at the rave and at the movie, and went back to our room to have BECHAROVKA WHICH IS ONE OF THE BEST LIQUORS EVER! Also there was other good shit, but I was rocking the Becharovka. We told plenty of good roleplaying stories before finally going to bed in preparation for the trek home the next day.

We never stick around for a convention on Sundays … mostly because it always manages to depress us. Fans are battered and broken, sets are half demolished, people are all trying to pack up, and the programming is generally subpar, no matter what convention you go to. Sunday was our time to shuffle our asses out of bed, drag ourselves to our cars, and drive ourselves 5-6 hours back to North Jersey. What a time. After saying our final goodbyes, and making a stop off at Freddie’s (which needs its own post again) we headed home, with fond memories of another AUSA past. We will be coming back next year, and it will be better than ever! … hopefully! … sort of!

So yeah, despite the major drama and carnage revolving around tech, AUSA was major kick-ass this year. Anyone who hasn’t checked it out yet should go next year. You won’t be disappointed.

Man did I really spend 2 hours typing that? Shit I wish I had this much drive in other things I do.

AUSA fans, be sure to come see us at Mokucon this Saturday. It’s free! Until next time. Stay way past cool!

Let me tell you a little story about Anime USA. Anime USA is not the biggest convention in the world. It is a medium sized hotel convention out in the suburbs of DC (otherwise known as Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia). It is easy for us to say that a big convention like Otakon or the New York Anime Festival is our favorite con, but that would be a lie. AUSA has been, and probably always will be our favorite convention to go to.

This is not to say it is our favorite convention to perform at. No, no, no, far from it. This year, all AUSA’s tech was accidentally shipped to L.A. … L.A.!!! This meant that every panelist that needed tech of some sort was mostly shit out of luck. We also got room shuffled out of Events B, which was the only size room that could reliably hold us, and I was even double scheduled for both opening ceremonies and my first panel! Anime PYL had to go off with a small CRT monitor, and while last minute finagling via ally and member Adam Hennessy got us a projector and screen for Spoiler (btw, mad thanks Adam, you continue to be the secret king of fandom. Also mad thanks to the guys at GPX Gaming who donated the projector and screen, you guys are the bomb!) the amount of issues we had up until that point, such as false descriptions in the guidebook, poorly shortened panel names on signs, and falsely advertised event start and end times, were numerous.

So without beating a dead horse, Anime USA is not the most organized convention out there. So why do we keep going? Because, Anime USA is the convention that has its finger on the pulse of fandom. What do I mean by this? Well, lets see. There’s the gaming room, which though small this year featured Brawl+, Tatsunoko VS Capcom, and tons of other imports, domestic releases, and retro gaming goodness that kept you busy for hours. There is the tabletop gaming room which brings with it its own library of RPGs, Board Games, and Card Games for your enjoyment. There is the LARP and the roleplaying area, where people run one shots and campaigns of all sorts. There was both a maid cafe and a host club, both of which were decently professionally run. There were concerts and dances every night featuring a variety of music. There were tons of fan run events including life sized board games, a night of werewolf, an RPG battle, the Masquerade, hallway raves, and much much more. There was a boffer and sparring circle. There was a great dealers room and artists alley. There were people projecting retro gaming onto the side of the hotel with a high powered projector. There was a live band doing all your favorite retro gaming hits at all time. There were martial artists performing demonstrations. There were celebrities to meet and drink with. Hell, there was even more stuff than this … stuff I can’t even remember!

Anime USA has always tried to make their convention feel like an escape to geekland just for one weekend. Though it is anime themed, there was plenty of American based shows being screened, there was a room for Japanese live action shows, hell there was just everything you could think of! That is why we continue to go, because no matter how “corporate” the Anime world gets, Anime USA always thinks of what the fans want first.

So now that I have given Anime USA a written blowjob (a deserving blowjob at that) lets go over our panels.

First, there was the Disorganization RPG Panel Now With Chairs. This was shortened to Disorganization XIII RPG, which made some people think it was a LARP and some thing it was a Kingdom Hearts panel. It was neither. We have stopped doing our Kingdom Hearts panel, since bringing up Axel and Roxas in the context of Yaoi apparently makes us homophobes. Also, with few new KH games released, there isn’t a whole lot of news stuff to go over. Our goal was to have an intelligent discussion about RPGs …. aaaaand we sort of failed in this goal. While we had 4 people on the panel at NYAF, this time around we had 7 people on the panel, and HOLY HELL were there interruptions. Con staff was setting up stuff in the background which was distracting in the first place, and half the panelists couldn’t agree with each other and in fought DURING THE PANEL! I was ready to die up there in front of the crowd. It was SOOOOO embarrassing. Most likely, we won’t be doing this panel again.

Strange story, we met Uncle Yo, our long time rival, before this panel. For the record he is a very nice guy and I couldn’t be prouder to be his rival. Unfortunately, however, he came to see the RPG panel, and not Spoiler, which is our panel that competes with him. He said he was gonna come to Spoiler, but he didn’t show up. He did manage to make a wisecrack about furries earlier in the day though. It’s too bad that most of DO XIII are furries. Open mouth, insert foot Yo! THE RIVALRY CONTINUES! Show up to the net showing of Spoiler to receive the antidote Yo! MUAHAHHAHAHAHA!

… no seriously Yo, if you don’t come to Spoiler I am going to shit in your hat.

Anyway …

On a more serious note, our next panel was Anime Press Your Luck. Some of you may have noticed that Brian Sapinski has been taken off our list of members. This is … unfortunate… because he had to leave the Disorganization due to creative differences … i.e. dumb shit. Thankfully though, his replacement, Scott Kasliner, the square root of negative one, and secret shadowlord of the Disorganization, really came through for us. He really got the crowd excited. They were all chanting as the contestants screamed “big money big money no whammy no whammy STOP!” It was great, and despite the false description it got in the guidebook (they described it as a steampunk panel) and the need to use a CRT television instead of a projector it went off wonderfully.

On a related note, Brian Sapinski, along with quitting the Disorganization, has taken his ball and gone home … so to speak. Basically, he took his copy of the PYL software with him, and pretty much forbade us from using it. He also plans on continuing Anime PYL independent of DO XIII, regardless of the fact that we gave him his start and introduced him to the convention scene in the first place. Well, DO XIII’s official response to that is “fuck that shit”. We will find some other (possibly shittier but what are ya gonna do) PYL software, and continue doing Anime PYL for years to come. Accept no substitutes! Also, on a related note, DO XIII would like to apologize for any bridges that may have been burned on behalf of Brian Sapinski. His views and opinions were not necessarily the views and opinions of the Disorganization. We especially would like to extend our apologies to Greg Wicker, the man who did Anime PYL before us. There was a misunderstanding between us and him, involving a convention (Tekoshocon) that we haven’t even been to, nor really plan to go to in the near future. His performances were amazing and you should check them out on Youtube. For the record, Disorganization XIII stands for panelist solidarity and we would never try to snipe a well done panel away from its owner. If you are reading this Greg, we would like to extend our hand in friendship to you and would love it if you would be willing to become an ally of the Disorganization.

So yeah, Brian is out, Scott is in, our PYL is better, check it out!

The rest of Friday was mostly spent drinking and playing Brawl+ in the gaming room … and of course, going to Anime Parliament. Let me just say that Anime Parliament just keeps getting better and better! We managed to retry all of Phoenix Wright’s cases, formed a committee to make sure vampires don’t suck, changed the opening theme of Pokemon to the opening theme of Death Note … or something, and much much more! Anime Parliament After Dark was even more hilarious! In fact, I argued a whole case without pants on! We managed to get child support for a giant flying penis demon’s spawn, we managed to get nin nin fair sexual treatment, and we charged Lawrence from Spice and Wolf with theobestiality based on the fact that having sex with a lovecraftian deity would count as reverse statutory. Anime Parliament continue to be one of the best panels of any convention EVER and if you ever see it on a panel schedule, you owe it to yourself to go and argue a case. Just be careful that Adam, our glorious magistrate, doesn’t use his Code Geass brand Drop the Floor button on you.

Well, that was Friday. Tune in next time when I get off my lazy ass and type up Saturday!

You see, I woke up on Sunday feeling a bit better than I was the rest of the convention weekend. Other than a bit of a runny nose, I could tell I was finally getting over whatever plagued me (and was soon to plague many other con-goers … sorry guys, show must go on and all). Me and my faithful DO XIII compatriots packed up our stuff, took one last look over the abysmal Sunday convention programming (seriously, I don’t think I have ever seen a good Sunday at any convention ever), checked out of the room, shoved our bags in the car, and decided to get something to eat before the long trek up to our home state of New Jersey (North Jersey even).

We walked down a strip of restaurants on 23rd St South, only a small ways away from the convention hotel. There was no shortage of good looking places to eat, but we just couldn’t decide where. We tried walking in to the local sports bar, but everyone there was dressed up in football jerseys, shouting at TV screens, and giving us odd looks as we walked through the door. Meanwhile, here I was still in my headband, DO-XIII T-Shirt, convention badge still hanging around my neck, trying to avoid talking about that awesome new episode of Code Geass I just saw. Yeah, no one felt like they were going to fit in in this place, and without a word we quietly backed out of the door and continued our search.

That was when we came upon Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. Maybe it was the beach theme that brought back fond memories of the Jersey shore, maybe it was the good smelling food coming from the buffet and the 4 free mamosas we got with it, maybe it was the purple and rainbow decor and the tasteful jazz music, or maybe it was simply a function of left over delirium from my horrible fever but this was the place we eventually sat down to eat. Yep, it was 10:00, on a Sunday, I had just finished performing at an anime convention with a 102 fever, and me and my friends were going to eat at a gay bar. Never a dull moment!

Before I go on, let me take a minute to address some unfortunate rumors that have been spread about Disorganization XIII. Since we at Disorganization XIII are very open and accepting to lifestyles of all sorts, we find no reason to censor ourselves when talking about such things in our panels. It is a disservice to talk about fan-fiction without ever bringing up Yaoi, for example. It is a similar disservice to bring up games such as Persona 4, that have characters (see Kanji Tatsumi) whose very plot lines involve homosexuality and the acceptance or rejection thereof, and avoid talking about those characters due to fear that this might offend someone. We are all mature people (regardless of the massive amount of penis jokes we make) and we should be able to talk about this stuff with the public without issue right.

Well, not so much. I won’t name names, but there are people who have taken our panels (regardless of our disclaimers and admission of our own queer identities) as homophobic. I think you can see where I am going with this … we are nothing of the sort. Our personal lives are not particularly anyone’s business but our own (please ignore the animal sounds coming form my room late at night) but let it be known that we have people of many races, religions, political affiliations and sexualities among our ranks. We accept all and are prejudiced against none (except Nazi’s, Scientologists, and Steve … you know what you did). We have members who are homosexual, bisexual, transgendered, and even more obscure terms like pansexual, and even asexual if you count some of our more eccentric members. Calling us homophobes is not only wrong, its laughable and quite frankly immature.

Now, back on track. Even though we are accepting, I could understand if some of our members might have felt uncomfortable at a gay bar, but not a single one was. Not only did Freddie’s welcome the entirety of DO-XIII with open arms, but they really understood where we were coming from. The waiters and bartenders were really nice, and participated in more than one conversation about anime, video games, and of course how queer society relates to geek society. They had many interesting insights about the homophobe problem, and amidst the many sex jokes and rampant innuendo, there was a civilized discussion about the fact that in some places, it is hard to say anything uncensored about the gay community without being branded a homophobe, even if you yourself are gay.

Once again, this could be a combination of the delirium from my sickness and the alcohol from the mamosas going to my head, but it was one of the most fun times I have ever had eating out. Not only was the wait staff unfathomably nice and very attentive, but the other people who were there for the buffet were quick to start up conversations with us as well! I have to be honest I have never, EVER, eaten at any place with a more pleasing atmosphere, gay bar or not!

However, aside from the magnificent atmosphere and wonderful intelligent conversation, let me talk to you about the real draw of Freddie’s … THE FOOD! Holy hell I was in heaven! The brunch buffet was not only very affordable (I don’t remember how much but it was very light on my wallet considering the mamosas) but it was delicious. There were pancakes, french toast, fresh waffles, bacon and ham as far as the eye can see, fresh biscuits, fruit salad, fresh omelets made to order, eggs over easy, and that is just a portion of the breakfast part! You also could have lunch and they had the greatest cuts of meat EVER! Or you could have gone Chinese with delicious General Tso’s chicken and fried rice! Heck, there was even more stuff that I can’t remeber but all of it was DELICIOUS! I ate until I was exploding … and then there was desert! Oh god, there was cheesecake and devils food cake and brownies and carrot cake and god just EVERYTHING you could possibly want all lined up and ready for you to take, and the taste of these sweets made me melt in my pants!

Freddie’s, without a doubt, was the best brunch buffet I had ever been too, and I live in Jersey so I have been to a lot. It was affordable, varied, plentiful, and delicious, with a great atmosphere and wonderful service. The staff of Freddie’s said that they were aware of Anime USA, but they rarely ventured over to see what it was like, nor did they ever get many visitors from the convention. This was a shame, considering a some of the staff had a healthy enjoyment of anime, videogames, and all around geekery. So I am here to spread the word. If you are LGBT friendly and need a place to eat that is not only affordable but delicious in ways I cannot even describe, then you should stop by Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. You will be glad you did!

In short, Disorganization XIII wants to take you to a gay bar, gay bar, gay bar WHOOOO!

(P.S. Seriously they will appreciate the traffic. Right now UFC articles are beating out anime and video game reviews! Show them what geek solidarity can do!)

(P.P.S. Haha I said Pee Pee)

(P. P. P. S. We will post some convention reviews here)

My first anime con was Shoujocon in 2001.  It was a small affair, and I was all pink and shiny and new to this anime thing, and I think I spent under $200 total for the entire trip.^[1] I followed that up the next year with another smallish con, Animazement, before going to my first Otakon.

It was huge!  The Baltimore Convention Center is somewhere you can actually get lost in for days, doing nothing but watching anime and checking out crazy costumes and meeting people you thought only existed on the internet and perhaps people you wanted to continue to exist only on the internet! ^[3] It was huge and amazing and I wanted to come again and again.^[4] And – dare I imagine it – maybe one day I would be cool enough to actually have a panel or draw a crowd and actually WORK Otakon.

Seven years later, I was privileged to be a part of Disorganization XIII’s magical Otakon presentation of Spoiler: the Panel: the Sequel: the Panel.  Whoot.

We left Thursday night, stopping only once at the Clara Barton^[5] rest stop on the drive down to our Ota-lodgings.  At said lodgings, NGLO and Baalesh invented the newest sleeping sensation, TeeterBed.  It’s an air mattress precariously balanced on top of a smaller air mattress.^[6] This was effective in not only keeping cats from scratching and deflating the air mattresses, but also making for exciting fun anytime someone had to roll over.  If you buy an official DO XIII TeeterBed now for the low, low price of $19.95, you get 3 free Sham-Wows!

Friday was the first day of attacking the con.  It’s been a few years since the last time I went to Otakon, and I had forgotten how massive it gets.  The lines!  YOU CAN’T BEGIN TO IMAGINE THE LINES.  They’re inside the building and around the building and I think wormholes are involved.  We were performing Spoiler: the Panel: the Sequel: the Panel that night, so our first course of action was to find our panel room, before it got too late and we were cold and hungry and lost and eaten by bears.  Otakon has expanded into the attached hotel, and our panel room was there.  We were worried – were we so far from the con that no one would come?  Would anyone be able to find us?  Part of our audience draw is that passerby hear laughter and pop in to see our show.  We were in Panel 6, which was the room farthest from the main convention area – you had to be determined to go to Panel 6, there was nothing else out there.  We worried that we had been relegated to a crap room, and then we looked inside.  Panel 6 was one of the largest panel rooms they had.

Oh.

The rest of the day went by in a blur.  We took pics of cosplayers, went to the Dealer’s Room, and ate at a Quiznos.  Felt a little let down that we were scheduled opposite of the “Philosophy of Bleach” panel, as I had hoped we could crash their party, since we’ve watched Bleach and have philosophers among us.  Felt better after hearing how the “Philosophy of Bleach” panel went down.  We saw Whose Line Is It Anime and what we could hear sounded funny.  We survived on granola bars and spite until 8:15pm EST.  We got on stage, I plugged my laptop into the projector and fired it up, and everything worked perfectly!  The audience who had already collected booed my RPattz desktop wallpaper when it came up on the screen. ^[7] But we were ahead of schedule!  And things worked!  HUZZAH!!!

Show went well and everyone who came out to see us was awesome.  Thank you, everyone!  Without you, we are just four nerds saying funny things to ourselves,^[8] and hell, we do that in the living room every week already.^[9] And thank you to everyone who came up and said hello after the show!^[10] We had one woman who came up and complained about a joke we had made.  She started by saying, “I thought you were funny, but the one joke of yours that I thought crossed the line was…” No, I won’t tell you what joke it was.  Try to figure it out!  Make a game!  Here’s a hint: it was definitely something I in no way expected anyone to ever complain about.

Saturday we woke up early, but not earlier than NGLO, for Anime Parlaiment, which was fabulous and just as good as caffeine at 8am.  We wandered about the con more, and ventured into the Artists Alley, where I unexpectedly spent a lot of money.  I couldn’t help it – people had cute magnets of kitties and jewelry made of dice and posters of the bands from Nana!  Eeee!  Sometimes I think about hunkering down with my crafting and creating a bunch of stuff and selling it in the Artists’ Alley at a con.  But then I get distracted by tin foil or vikings and my own personal laziness kicks in.  Maybe someday y’all will be lucky enough to have your own personal arts and crafts by me.  SOMEDAY.

Saturday afternoon featured Anime Press Your Luck led by Brian and Koshi, which went awesomely.  Had some lunchdinner at the Nest, and then back to the con for Video Games that Push Our Buttons. Video Rooms: Diebuster, Fan Parodies, then OMG WTF it’s 2am and we’ve been here since 8am time for go to bed.

Sunday we didn’t even go to the con.  We stayed in and slept in our own filth and played games with the friends who were gracious enough to let us crash at their apartment for the weekend.  On the way home, we stopped at almost every rest stop so that we could mark our territory along the Eastern Seaboard. Or because we drank a lot of soda, whichever.

In the end, Otakon is like Otaku Mecca and it is glorious.  For three days, I got to be around some of my favorite people and got to forget that sometimes in the world, I have to describe my fandom as, “*sigh* Anime.  You know.  …Pokemon,” and if I had ever gone through with getting that Trigun tattoo, I would not be judged here.  I definitely had a religious experience. ^[12]

———–

^[1] To be honest, the only anime I was really into were Sailor Moon and Tenchi.  I did say I was pink and shiny and new.  Also, at the time, I didn’t know much about the items that would eventually become my main money-suck, doujinshi.  What I did think about doujinshi was that they were *gasp!* ...dirty books. Why would I want to buy those?^[2]

^[2] So remind me to tell you sometime about the doujinshi I have where Wolfwood is a prostitute and Vash, Meryl, and Milly all have sex with him for money.

^[3] And find a shower!

^[4] That’s what she said.

^[5] I think Clara Barton is the woman who marries Doc Brown in Back to the Future 3.  Surely some sort of awesome time-travel-related adventure must’ve taken place here for New Jersey to name a rest stop after her.

^[6] And then you put a pea under the smaller mattress.  Also learned on this trip: NGLO and Baalesh are not secretly princesses, and pea is just terrible to clean out of carpet.

^[7] Really? REALLY? And I don’t like to break this one out for just anything, but if you remain unconvinced, HERE.

^[8] Please come see us do Spoiler 3: [insert title here] at NYAF 2009 and Anime USA 2009!

^[9] You are not invited to come see Spoiler 3: [insert title here] in Kirk and Casey’s Living Room 2009.

^[10] Like the girl who came up and thanked me for doing Lupin III!  Thank you for liking the show!  I’m sorry I didn’t get to say much else, but I was trying to get my stuff together and my friend and I were gonna grab a drink and I had 15 things I was trying to process in addition to my natural inability to talk to new people and personal shynesss, ^[11] but you rocked!

^[11] It’s hard for shy people to do Spoiler in front of a massive audience.  Know that I stay calm by picturing all of you naked.

^[12] If you, like me, define “religious experience” as, “They took all my money and now I feel ashamed and a little dirty,” that is.