Friday night I carpooled from Minneapolis to Chicago.  The drive was quite
pleasant, the weather beautiful.

Yeah, until you actually got to Chicago.  >.<  (Except for that brief
period of sunshine on Sunday)

Arrived in the hotel.  I went wandering about, noting that we were sharing
hotel space with the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women.  What they were
going to make of the weekend's proceedings I shuddered to think.

I thought they were rather entertaining.  :)

I wandered around looking for Zen.  I tried calling his hotel room to no
avail.  

You HEARD this story.  I don't want to repeat it.  x.x

I decided to pick up my badge.  The badges were kinda cheap and the
writing was quite small.  This was inconvenient because all weekend long I
kept peering at people's chests trying to figure out who they were.

I'm suuuure.  I bet this was just a convenient excuse.  Gee, what was
that woman in the Sophia costume's name?  :)

I'd left my Kuno outfit at
home, and now wished I'd brought it with me.

Now this I'll have to see.  *cracks knuckles*

In the hallway, lots of people were lined up to get Amanda Winn's autograph.
She must have signed for hours and hours, but she seemed to be approaching
it with enthusiasm.

How much had she had to drink?  :)

I made plans to go see
Escaflowne at 8.

*appropriate sound effects here*  :)

At 7pm I met Ryan Matthews.  While talking to him, Zen walked by and I
greeted him enthusiastically.  He was carrying a giant Ukyo spatula, made
out of the remains of an aluminum refrigerator door.  The thing was *big* -
about five feet long.  It was well balanced; Zen could twirl it about with
ease.  

Just not in the room.  :)  And not in the presence of any staff.

I also met Lara Bartram - someone I'd talked to a bit on KawaiiMUCK.

Oh, that was YOU??  :)

Lara, Zen, and I sat down at the hotel's pitiful food court and I bought Zen
some pizza.  We talked for a while and had a meandering conversation.
Meeting folks and talking was a big reason I wanted to go the con.

I thought he bought you pizza?  And how many names did you forget? :)
 

At 8pm I went to go see Escaflowne.

*appropriate noises*

Back at the food court, Zen and Lara were still talking, having not moved
since dinner.  

Hey!  We moved.  I had shifted my chair to the right some.  Though maybe
Zen didn't move.

I also met David Lerman, 

The only person i wasn't expectign to see who recognized me.  I'm not
sure if I'm glad or not.  :)  Though, no one's ever been quite that
forward about calling me a pervert before.  :)

who showed us some examples of anime
in Europe.  In Poland, the name for fanfiction is "fanfiki".  I've decided
that that's the term I'm going to use from now on.  :^_^

I went back to the food court - that's right, Zen and Lara *still* hadn't
moved.  

Darn it!  Yes we had!  You just couldn't tell.  :)

I talked with them some more, and then I joined the TCAMS people
(Twin Cities Anime & Manga Society).

So THAT's who those people were.  And I still should have had a drink.

At midnight I went to go watch some fan videos.  "Death Racer: Passenger
69", a Speed Racer parody, had its moments.  They showed some fan music
videos, but I left soon thereafter.  It wasn't terribly interesting.

That's right, damn it.  I said I was going to bring Voltron: Hellbent
for Leather, didn't I?

The next morning (well, 12:30pm)

That's right.  That was morning for you.  Sorry about the wake up call. :)

I met Zen in the Dealer's Room, and we stood for a while chatting.  At one
point, someone came up to me and told me what a huge fan of "Thy Inward
Parts" 

They let you do that in public?  And I missed it?  Darn.  :)

he was.  I thanked him and pointed him to Zen, the author of "The
Bitter End".  He got all excited and started gushing all over Zen.

At one point, Ryan mentioned that he used to write pretty quickly, but
slowed down considerably when, as he put it, "I got a life".  Seeing as how
I'm known for writing very quickly myself, I decided I couldn't let this
pass.  So I took the glass of ice water I was holding and poured it on him.
The audience loved it.  ^_^

Yes, you found this very humorous until you realized there was none left.
Wasn't that a joy?  :)  (It wasn't THAT funny - you heading for the
door after making a certain comment about a certain character and
having a spatula waved at you was better).

Went out to dinner with a couple of Zen's friends.  (Another unfortunate
thing about the hotel was that there were no restaurants within walking
range, other than the hotel's lousy food court or its overpriced
restaurant.)

Yes, this was a complete crime.  I was rather diappointed that I was
forced to deal with the hotel raping, I mean prices for food and drink.

 Six people in Zen's truck meant that I was pressed against the
window on one side and Lara on the other.  I stared straight ahead and
thought of baseball stats.

I wondered why you kept scooting over more and more when there wasn't
anyplace left for you to go.  And really, I don't bite.  :)

Gee, and you neglected to mention ANYTHING that happened at dinner.
That's no fun.  :) :) ;)

One entry had the giant panda costume and female Ranma on stage, fighting
each other.  A rather uninspired skit, but the panda costume was good.  They
began to walk off stage, when the speakers began playing "I'm Too Sexy".
The panda jumped back to the center of the stage and began gyrating to the
beat of the music.  The audience went crazy, cheering him on as he danced
about, twitching his hips and other acrobatic feats (for a panda).  At one
point, Amanda Winn jumped on stage and stuffed a five dollar bill in his,
er, fur.  Again the audience went nuts.

Ahem.  I don't think that's exactly why everyone started cheering.  :)

moved.  His special present was to be whipped by one of the contestants, who
was wearing a leather costume that showed her body to good effect.  ^_^

You need to play more video games.  She made a rather good Sophia
(from Toshinden), but I personally thought the Cammy costume was better.

At midnight, I went to go see AD Vision's premiere of the Shin KOR movie.
The ADV guy apologized that they only had the dub available.  As I watched
it, I understood why.  I like both dubs and subs, and don't take a strong
position either way on the eternal debate.  But this dub was *awful*.  The
voice actors seemed to be merely reading words off a page.  I couldn't stand
it.  The good thing they did was to make the dialogue a lot less cheesier -
my one big complaint about the sub.  Another curious thing about the dub:
Kyosuke calls Hikaru "Hikaru-chan" (of which I approve); however, she calls
him "Mr. Kasuga".

Nabiki turned into a little boy.  You probably would have liked that.
It was fairly interesting (until I fell asleep).

I talked briefly with Bert Van Vliet and Jeanne, went out to get some pizza
with Zen and Lara and some others, 

Damn you and your vegetarian pizza!  :)  (And Mike Ko made a really
fabulous Takeo from Mahou Tsukai Tai - the tights were especially
cute).

If I can avoid Ryan's revenge and Zen's BFS 10K, that is.  ^_^

Um... I don't think so.  :)

Lara