Friday | Saturday | Costume Contest | Sat/Sun | Hetalia
After the game, the plan was to take a shower and rejoin Sarah downstairs for the ending of the Man Auction and a rock concert featuring Dr. Cancer and the SKAmbies, a Stevens Point ska band that sent a few guys up to play football with us.
It almost worked out that way too.
Friday-2/Saturday-1
Max-Mad
Why do that when I can visit Room 202 for the first time in years?
Same ol' gang. Tyler even bought ancient crappy anime for the occasion. It's like we never left.
Sarah found me soon afterwards and we headed downstairs. Turned out they were starting with the classic bands like To Slay Zombie Newton. We ended up running into a brief Hetalia photoshoot.
Perceptive! This is not Hetalia, but rather Zack as Travis Touchdown from No More Heroes. To spare the flow, all Hetalia photos will be on a different page.
After an hour chilling with our fellow nations, we somehow ended up in the No Mercy Room to catch the end of Casino Royale- the 60's version that I caught the first half of last year. Having bought it on DVD for some inexplicable reason during a local rental shop's liquidation sale, I was better prepared to rip it apart.
The part with the horseback/UFO kidnapping still gets me though.
At last! Dr. Cancer starts jamming. They put on a very nice show, with some pretty nice arrangements of classic songs (both ska and rock). I approve.
Around the same time, I also popped in next door to see Mike (Mike F, Geek.Kon's workforce head and No Brand's panel guy) playing random internet videos. This killed my attention span for the next two hours.
Only to be broken by video game room deity Chief, wheeling in on a push cart. Seems he fell down the stairs earlier in the day and destroyed his foot. And yet he returns to supervise his chiefdom!
Somewhere between the Youtube Poop videos, Sarah and I headed back upstairs and went straight to bed. It was possibly the only night of the year we won't be running either a con or a room party, so it's nice to get to sleep at the prompt hour of 1:00 am.
Especially since Sarah had a Fruits Basket panel at 10:00 am. I came in a bit late, amused that a cozy little panel like hers was in Main Programming... and staff still had a huge gap of chairs from last night's concert, leaving a fifteen-foot trench between her and the attendees. Evan was walking around with a microphone so she could hear them. I hung around in back and chatted with Herald, John (another Geek.Kon staffer) and Scott...
Scott joined Geek.Kon staff! He's trying out his paper Geekbot mask, and later got pictures of me and Mike with it on.
My cosplay for Saturday was slightly more involved...
But Estonia is no match for...
Teddie! Cassie outdid herself this year... and outdid all those Persona references I had last Daisho.
This year, Tyler and I weren't interested in doing Name That Anime Opening at No Brand this year. For one because of the tech disaster last year. For two because I'm bringing the sumgun to Anime Central!! Saturday at 3:00, y'all!
Ahem... to make up for it, Reanna and I submitted a writing panel, and actually got a decent number of people! We had good discussions on concluding stories, what to do when characters gain too much sentience, and Ri even contributed a character creation game... where we ended up making the janitor for the Batcave.
I plugged MST considerably (as did Ri with her Jigsaw), to the approval of Matt (and girlfriend Julie). In a fit of Hetalia-inspired passion, they threw together half-assed Greece and Canada cosplays the night before.
More aimless wandering followed, much of it in the dealers room. I was briefly entranced by Eagle Anime's TV showing assorted Digimon evolutions.
And little Lina. Can't forget little Lina.
Or Kirby.
Anyway... time for the Hetalia panel.
At the very start of this Hetalia panel, America was having trouble getting the A/V to work. Remember how I said Estonia was the world's IT nerd? Yeah, so did they, and they told me to fix it. So I did. It was the best part of the panel.
Our massive photoshoot was next. Again, Hetalia stuff's on a different page, so we'll skip over that.
As the masquerade drew near, it meant our window for food was closing. Thus, it was time to feast! Thanks to some strategically placed coupons in our hotel room, we got some bucks knocked off meals at the hotel's restaurant... which I never knew existed until now. After getting our food, we promptly switched tables to join Sarah's old Wausau friends.
Hi, Wausau friends.
After settling the bill, Sarah took a nap before the masquerade. I hung out with Matt and Julie for a while, then with Sarah B. and John. Lots of talk, not much action, no pictures.
Except for Nick Izumi cosplaying Rengei. Because I'm sure you all wanted to see that.
Sarah was feeling a little under the weather, so I dragged her down so she could compete in the masquerade. I also helped John and Sarah B. setup the green room to accommodate the larger-than-expected number of competitors. By the time we were done, the room was great... but there was a huge line to get in to watch the contest itself. There was no way I could get a good seat.