Wow, someone actually responded to my self-pitying "no one pays attention to me" post. (or as some might call it, my Eeyore impression.) I never wrote about the con because, well it was Febuary. January to March and May to July are really busy for the kind of work I do. I worked late a lot of nights and by the time I got home I just didn't have energy to blog (or do much of anything else. By the time I did have energy again, it seemed like not much point. Especially so late after the fact. No one but Shelly, my friend, seemed interested anyway. And she was there most of the time. What's worse is that not only did I not blog about Katsucon 2004 in Feb, but I didn't even mention the two other cons I went to this year Anime North 2004 (In Toronto) and Otakon 2004 (in Baltimore.) At which both I met a lot of people. At AN I got to meet Ina-chan, Mona, Ysabet and Rjunkie in person. At Otakon I got to meet up with Ina and Mona again and got to meet SymbolicAgony and Morsel the cat. That's the best thing about cons is meeting people. And I discovered that I'm semi-famous at Otakon (at least in FB fandom) as people recognized me as "That FB Fangirl". Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I've also since then taken a second job. Now I work for Waldenbooks and have sold my soul so I can get a discount on manga.

I never update this thing, I never get any feedback on it (probably because I never update it. I wonder if I should just take it down.

Okay, so it's not tomorrow. It's several days past. But I am continuing the con log! Okay... so I covered the drama of getting *to* the con more or less. The only think I left out was my EXTREME poor choice in how I packed my bags. In my infinite wisdom, I noticed that I had a lot of heavy stuff to carry with me. I had two bags to fill, one carry on, one rolling bag I was going to check. So clever me, I thought I'd evenly distribute the stuff and have... two really heavy bags. -_- Afterwards, I realized that it would have been WAY easier to put ALL the heavy stuff in the rolling suitcase... 'cause well it ROLLS and I don't have to LIFT it like the carry on bag I took. It made the mad dash from the plane to the shuttle, to the marc train to the metro, to the transfer really hard. I kept hitting people with the stupid thing, and I nearly knocked this one black guy over three times... once on the shuttle, once on the train and then on the metro... by the third time he was laughing about it and he helped me not to fall on my face when the metro stopped. ^^; I know DC is supposed to have a high crime rate and everything, but everyone I bashed with my bag was really nice about it. Maybe it was because I looked like I was going to explode... I caught a glimpse of my self in a mirrored elevator mid-travel and my face was beet red and my ponytail and hair (which kept getting caught under my bagstrap which HURTS) looked like it had an electrical current running through it. Or it could have been the stench. By the time I got to my friend's apartment I reeked so bad I was making myself uncomfortable. Thank god she had a shower and a laundry machine, lol. Anyway, all of this was going on the Thursday before the con. That night my friend came home and found me sleeping on her couch. Not really a problem, except that I had her keys. She called my cell, which was right next to my head, knocked on the door, and I didn't end up moving until I heard her voice on her own answering machine. -_- I'm lucky she's my best friend... I'm such a pain when I visit. That night we went out (idiot me without my id) to a bar that thankfully doesn't card on the weekday. I usually don't get carded when I'm with my friend, though I still get checked for R rated movies. (I'm 28! Ten years past the age that is allowed to see an R rated movie!) And met up with my friend's boyfriend and a friend of his. She seemed like a very interesting person, but I was so tired I don't remember much of what they talked about. It was mostly about the state department, which has been a big topic of discussion for a while in our circle. My friend has been on the waiting list for a job there for a while now... after bravely deciding to do what she really wanted with her life instead of just making do like the rest of us do. ^_^ Of course there have been obsticals in the way, security clearance, father's praying against her, ups and downs on the list because of annoying people with advanced language skills. Thinking about it, I bet it would make an interesting Manga... hey..Friend (who is probably one of the few people reading this blog) can I make a manga of your state department struggle? hehe... and she's the one who told me to continue my blog... Anyway... I still haven't gotten to the con details.. aaaaahh... I'm too wordy. It's just when I start writing it just seems a waste if I don't talk about everything. Anyway, after hanging at the bar/pub place (it was a nice place too I wish we had a place like that here to go to) we went out for a really good dinner at this salvadoran (? I think) mexican place. It was very good, and I had a lot of leftovers, which I left in my friends fridge. I hope someone ate them. Then it was off to bed... Speaking of which, it's really late here again and I have to work tomorrow. I'll write more in this tomorrow night (really tomorrow or at least I'll try). I'll finally be able to move on to the first day of the con! Friday!

I should just turn this into a con blog... that really seems to be the only time I update this thing. And here I go again. On Monday I got back from my trip to Katsucon 10, and oh what a trip it was. ^_^ I wanted to go to this con especially this year because last year's Katsucon was the trip from hell. To start off I was out of work at the time, I got sick (I came down with strep the first morning of the con) and had to spend $300 on medication and doctors, I got stuck in the snow (and had to walk in it for hours just to get to a friends apartment to crash at), and on the way home I got in a horrific accident that totaled my car and cost lives. (none from my car, but a car that was behind us) So in a way I felt I had to come back to Katsucon to prove that my life had changed for the better. After all, I had a new, better job, a new better car, and I was coming back to the con with new, better stuff to sell. But first I had to get there. Sounds simple, turned out not to be. I first had to wait to buy my tickets till late because of Christmas, and bills and such... I had to wait a little longer then I wanted to because of a cash flow problem. The ways my bills were falling and my paychecks were falling in January all of my major bills (Rent, Car Payment, Studen Loan Payment, and Insurance) were all going to fall on one paycheck, yikes! Since I had very little cushion I couldn't risk buying my tickets and have one of those payments bounce by a few dollars. So I had to wait till practically last minute... or what I consider last minute, about 3 weeks away. At 2 weeks prices go up, so I knew I had to do it before then. Last time I'd checked the prices were about $200 for the tickets and time I wanted. But when I went back they were about $250, and out of my budget by a small percentage. I went through a whole bunch of rigamarole, but finally dug up the extra $50 (I was really determined to go!) and bought my tickets on priceline.com. or so I thought... after about a week passes I notice that my account had still not been charged for the price of the tickets. Worried I logged back onto priceline, and discovered no, they'd never booked my tickets. There was some security code they needed off the back of my card.. but my card was a debit card and doesn't *have* that security thingie... Anyway I find now less than 2 weeks to the con that I have no tickets. EEEK! Priceline sucks, they didn't even email me to let me know the transaction failed, all they gave me was a confirmation number and page that gave me my itenerary as if it had gone through. (And don't think that they didn't have my email address correct... they've managed to send me advertisements every week since I first tried to get the tickets.) So I discover that if I want to get into DC for the price I had before I have to leave a day earlier and fly into Baltimore instead of Ronald Regan and take a shuttle to a marc train to a metro to a transfer to another metro to get to my friend's apartment where I would be staying. But I got the time off, I ordered the tickets (from Orbitz.com this time, and it WORKED, boycott priceline, they suck), and got there ok... and wow that was a lot of drama and a lot of typing... I think I'm going to have to give the actual con news tomorrow. But this time I will! I promise!