All the happenings at AVCon '05!
Jul. 19th, 2005 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
friezaessOh Lord. So much to write. How on earth am I going to get through all this? >.<
I suppose I had better start from the very top. On Friday, I was at Ringwood station well before the sun had risen, making sure to send SMSes to everyone else who was going to AVCon to give them a "wake up call". I hooked up with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eviltom along the way, and we headed off to Spencer St where we hopped on a V-Line train. It took us to Salsbury or something, then we had to go the rest of the way to Adelaide by coach -.-; Man that was a long ride. I slept a bit and Tom fooled around on his DS, until we finally descended into Adelaide at around 8pm. A little late for the Launch Party, but thankfully for us, the party was also behind schedule.
Now, I'm sorry to anyone from Adelaide, but I have to get this out of the way. It's the dodgiest city I've ever been to. It really, really is. There's strip joints everywhere (while there's nothing wrong with a good set of hooters, the drunken males that swarm to them tend to spill out into the streets >_>), drunken hobos scattered about everywhere, and hooligans who yell stuff at you for absolutley no reason. It's kind of like a merger of all the bad asects of Sydney and Canberra, and everything I've ever heard about the place prooved true. I don't know, it's probably more user friendly once you leave the CBD, but from what I saw of it... ack. I wanted to go have a look at Glenelg on Sunday morning, but I was too scared to go by myself >_>
ANYWAY. One of the good aspects of Adelaide is that booze is cheap. Cruisers cost around $4 instead of the standard $7, so I made sure to have one at the party. Tom and I were greeted by a swarm of Manifestees, including5hi_tenshi, baorin_lee and Swifty, azusachan, nekopan and sora_ishida. Hannah and I were mock fighting and she kicked me in the crotch, HARD >.< I take back everything I ever said about it not hurting if you kick a girl there ^^; Gave captbooyah a poke (wow, look at all those LJ tags), and also got to see fellow con whore Setsuna.
After the meet and greet we went into the cinema and watched Steamboy, which I'm sure many people aside from Hannah and myself were falling asleep during. We'd all had a very long journey ^^; After that we skipped back to the hostel and had a socialising session. Met some of the AVCon crew and worked on my cosplay which, as usual, sucked. I'd accidently packed my skirt instead of my trousersm, s I had to borrow some from dear Katie! (Much love to her for that <3) Also stitched the purple bits to it. Well,ashamsama and Dani did most of teh sewing. But I did a damn good job of saying "screw this, I'll use fabric glue!"
Now, after staying up all night on the Thursday, I was greatful to go to bed even if it was only for five hours. Got up early, did a few adjustments, then wandered around trying to find the Uni with Tom and Dani. We got there early, but there was still a huge line! Unfortunatly AVCon had the same problem as Animania in that the pre-reg line moved MUCH slower than the on-the-day rego. Usually taht'd annoy me to all hell but... well... once you're on a committee, you realise that sometiems these things happen ^^;
The thing was, by the time I got past mark at the rego desk, I had all of one minute to get to the room where I was to hold the Yaoi Panel. Unfortunatly this room was tucked away in a corner where even members of staff didn't know where it was, but I got there just in time. Except the computer didn't recognise my iPod >.< I got the techno savvies in the audience to help me out, eventually calling on members of staff, until it finally got recognised. Then the computer didn't have Powerpoint on it -.- So I had to improvise for quite a while until it was bought to me via flash drive ^^; *praises AVCon staff for their help!!* Things went much more smoothly when I had my notes with me. It started very late thanks to the technical difficulties so I wouldn't call it a complete sucess, but it still seemed to go over well in the end, so joy! (Thank gawd the cosplay panel to follow had been cancelled! Though it was amusing seeing little tykes walk in looking for it just as I was showing rather... erm... M-rated content.)
Caught up with Sydney2k who took a few photos of me and Dani. It was then time to hit the vendors! They were kinda lacking, the best one there being ShinTokyo. Everything else was just manga and DVDs really, though there was a cool stand where I got a shirt that says "Tentacle Love" on it ^^ I also saw AVCon showbags which, whilst the content didn't grab me, was a great concept.
I also got to catch up withmisty_yuy who I haven't seen since Manifest '03! We fangirled together and such which was fun. She was wearing the same wig as she had been in '03 XD
The whole day went rather quickly. Between socialising (zomg, I know you from the AVCon forums!) and wandering, Dani, Katie and I took in the AMV comp to see if Mark had won anything. He didn't. There goes the poor kid's dreams of pwning all the Aussie cons! We also went to see Good News Geek which, whilst a really good concept, fell flat on its face. It might have worked a bit better if they hadn't tried to stick to the original show so much. It was amusing seeing a Shinji made out of cardboard get beaten to death with a bokken though!
As with anime.au, one of the highlights was the Trivia. Okay. Let me take a step back for just a moment.
The music I listen to is one of the most precious things in my life. A lot of the time when I've been in hopeless situations, I knew that as long as I had my friends and my music, things would turn out. X-Japan is my most favourite band, ever. There's several songs of theirs I cherish, including the beautiful, mournful "Crucify My Love". Unfortunatly, seeing as it's not only J-music but OLD J-music (classic none the less), I don't exactly get to hear it outsideo f my computer speakers and my headphones.
So naturally, when they started playing aforementioned song over the speakers at Trivia, I started screaming my head off and running around trying to find out who had put it on. Believe it or not, that moment was my highlight of the whole con I think. (That and "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!")
But yes. Our Manifest group sat at a dark table with a lamp on it scribbling away answers for the ten rounds. I only got two, but they were good ones! (Completing a bash.org quote was one... I love being a geek.)
Afterwards, several of us wandered around looking for alcohol. Sadly tehre was none, and we were doomed to pass the time without vomiting. Instead Katie whacked on Yami no Matsuei. I got to see the episode with the notes in it again! I love that to pieces!
I turned in well before Tom, and woke up a little later Sunday than I had on Saturday. Unfortunatly I couldn't take any pictures on the first day due to the fact my camera swallowed up a brand new set of AAA batteries in seconds, but I got some batteries from Woolies before we went in (it was good to see a Woolworths instead of a Safeway again!), so I have a few Sunday pics. Then the batteries died two hours in >.<
Dani, Katie and I wandered around with one of the Yaoi Panel attendees, getting photos with such people as the Shuichi cosplayer! So adorable!
As usual, the highlight was the cosplay. Misty and I had tried to plan a skit, but that fell through so I just ended up reinacting Aya's scene with the helicopter. "SHI-NEEEE!!! *throws sword at chopper*" There were some really good cosplayers and some really crap ones (like I can talk), but it was a great display. My some of those costumes looked cold @_@
At the closing ceremony I purchased Shinji's beaten head for $7. (Kaworu must have gotten to him...) We got a chance to get up on stage to plug Manifest but some of the things members of the group said sounded more insulting than humourous... ack >_> Moving right along.
After AVCon was, praise the lord, an afterparty. After certain goings on lovelife-wise, I needed to get smashed. Had a bit of a drinking game with Grant, aka SectorX4, but had to give in when I realised there was a 12 hour bus ride ahead of me the next day. Eight drinks in under an hour isn't too bad though! I shall pwn him at Manifest ^_~ So we all drank, wore Amy's hats, chatted, and sketched. Yeah, I'm teh type who tends to whip out her sketchpad and start drawing at the most odd times. We were kicked out after 1am, and wandered back to the hostel. Grant stuck an AVCon sign to me ^^; Once we got back to the hostel my angst from earlier kicked in, and I had to literally run away from the Manifestees to compose myself. Nichole followed, kindly offering me a shoulder to cry on, and we had a nice long chat.
When I was somewhat presentable, we went out on the balcony with the Manifestees and AVConites, but Tom and I had to depart the crowd early seeing as our bus left at 8:30am that day >.<
Something really freaky happened that night. I went to sleep pretty fast, and when I woke up in the middle of the night, I was standing outside our room about to open the door. And I have absolutley no recollection of how I got there or what happened. That's never happened to me before. So I'm a freaking sleepwalker now? Needless to say, last night I put a bunch of suitcases and such against my door to lock myself in TT___TT I'm officially freaked out.
Anyway. We got back to Melbourne around 9, and as we waited at Melbourne Central for a train, a guy recognised the Madman logo on my bag. He was a bit of a freak, as were the other two guys on the train who also recognised it >_>
As usual, I ate practically nothing for the period of time I was away. I had but one small snack a day, like three small dimsims or a sausage with bread.
... I'm still freaking exhausted @_@
I suppose I had better start from the very top. On Friday, I was at Ringwood station well before the sun had risen, making sure to send SMSes to everyone else who was going to AVCon to give them a "wake up call". I hooked up with
eviltom along the way, and we headed off to Spencer St where we hopped on a V-Line train. It took us to Salsbury or something, then we had to go the rest of the way to Adelaide by coach -.-; Man that was a long ride. I slept a bit and Tom fooled around on his DS, until we finally descended into Adelaide at around 8pm. A little late for the Launch Party, but thankfully for us, the party was also behind schedule.Now, I'm sorry to anyone from Adelaide, but I have to get this out of the way. It's the dodgiest city I've ever been to. It really, really is. There's strip joints everywhere (while there's nothing wrong with a good set of hooters, the drunken males that swarm to them tend to spill out into the streets >_>), drunken hobos scattered about everywhere, and hooligans who yell stuff at you for absolutley no reason. It's kind of like a merger of all the bad asects of Sydney and Canberra, and everything I've ever heard about the place prooved true. I don't know, it's probably more user friendly once you leave the CBD, but from what I saw of it... ack. I wanted to go have a look at Glenelg on Sunday morning, but I was too scared to go by myself >_>
ANYWAY. One of the good aspects of Adelaide is that booze is cheap. Cruisers cost around $4 instead of the standard $7, so I made sure to have one at the party. Tom and I were greeted by a swarm of Manifestees, including
5hi_tenshi, baorin_lee and Swifty, azusachan, nekopan and sora_ishida. Hannah and I were mock fighting and she kicked me in the crotch, HARD >.< I take back everything I ever said about it not hurting if you kick a girl there ^^; Gave captbooyah a poke (wow, look at all those LJ tags), and also got to see fellow con whore Setsuna. After the meet and greet we went into the cinema and watched Steamboy, which I'm sure many people aside from Hannah and myself were falling asleep during. We'd all had a very long journey ^^; After that we skipped back to the hostel and had a socialising session. Met some of the AVCon crew and worked on my cosplay which, as usual, sucked. I'd accidently packed my skirt instead of my trousersm, s I had to borrow some from dear Katie! (Much love to her for that <3) Also stitched the purple bits to it. Well,
ashamsama and Dani did most of teh sewing. But I did a damn good job of saying "screw this, I'll use fabric glue!"Now, after staying up all night on the Thursday, I was greatful to go to bed even if it was only for five hours. Got up early, did a few adjustments, then wandered around trying to find the Uni with Tom and Dani. We got there early, but there was still a huge line! Unfortunatly AVCon had the same problem as Animania in that the pre-reg line moved MUCH slower than the on-the-day rego. Usually taht'd annoy me to all hell but... well... once you're on a committee, you realise that sometiems these things happen ^^;
The thing was, by the time I got past mark at the rego desk, I had all of one minute to get to the room where I was to hold the Yaoi Panel. Unfortunatly this room was tucked away in a corner where even members of staff didn't know where it was, but I got there just in time. Except the computer didn't recognise my iPod >.< I got the techno savvies in the audience to help me out, eventually calling on members of staff, until it finally got recognised. Then the computer didn't have Powerpoint on it -.- So I had to improvise for quite a while until it was bought to me via flash drive ^^; *praises AVCon staff for their help!!* Things went much more smoothly when I had my notes with me. It started very late thanks to the technical difficulties so I wouldn't call it a complete sucess, but it still seemed to go over well in the end, so joy! (Thank gawd the cosplay panel to follow had been cancelled! Though it was amusing seeing little tykes walk in looking for it just as I was showing rather... erm... M-rated content.)
Caught up with Sydney2k who took a few photos of me and Dani. It was then time to hit the vendors! They were kinda lacking, the best one there being ShinTokyo. Everything else was just manga and DVDs really, though there was a cool stand where I got a shirt that says "Tentacle Love" on it ^^ I also saw AVCon showbags which, whilst the content didn't grab me, was a great concept.
I also got to catch up with
misty_yuy who I haven't seen since Manifest '03! We fangirled together and such which was fun. She was wearing the same wig as she had been in '03 XDThe whole day went rather quickly. Between socialising (zomg, I know you from the AVCon forums!) and wandering, Dani, Katie and I took in the AMV comp to see if Mark had won anything. He didn't. There goes the poor kid's dreams of pwning all the Aussie cons! We also went to see Good News Geek which, whilst a really good concept, fell flat on its face. It might have worked a bit better if they hadn't tried to stick to the original show so much. It was amusing seeing a Shinji made out of cardboard get beaten to death with a bokken though!
As with anime.au, one of the highlights was the Trivia. Okay. Let me take a step back for just a moment.
The music I listen to is one of the most precious things in my life. A lot of the time when I've been in hopeless situations, I knew that as long as I had my friends and my music, things would turn out. X-Japan is my most favourite band, ever. There's several songs of theirs I cherish, including the beautiful, mournful "Crucify My Love". Unfortunatly, seeing as it's not only J-music but OLD J-music (classic none the less), I don't exactly get to hear it outsideo f my computer speakers and my headphones.
So naturally, when they started playing aforementioned song over the speakers at Trivia, I started screaming my head off and running around trying to find out who had put it on. Believe it or not, that moment was my highlight of the whole con I think. (That and "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!")
But yes. Our Manifest group sat at a dark table with a lamp on it scribbling away answers for the ten rounds. I only got two, but they were good ones! (Completing a bash.org quote was one... I love being a geek.)
Afterwards, several of us wandered around looking for alcohol. Sadly tehre was none, and we were doomed to pass the time without vomiting. Instead Katie whacked on Yami no Matsuei. I got to see the episode with the notes in it again! I love that to pieces!
I turned in well before Tom, and woke up a little later Sunday than I had on Saturday. Unfortunatly I couldn't take any pictures on the first day due to the fact my camera swallowed up a brand new set of AAA batteries in seconds, but I got some batteries from Woolies before we went in (it was good to see a Woolworths instead of a Safeway again!), so I have a few Sunday pics. Then the batteries died two hours in >.<
Dani, Katie and I wandered around with one of the Yaoi Panel attendees, getting photos with such people as the Shuichi cosplayer! So adorable!
As usual, the highlight was the cosplay. Misty and I had tried to plan a skit, but that fell through so I just ended up reinacting Aya's scene with the helicopter. "SHI-NEEEE!!! *throws sword at chopper*" There were some really good cosplayers and some really crap ones (like I can talk), but it was a great display. My some of those costumes looked cold @_@
At the closing ceremony I purchased Shinji's beaten head for $7. (Kaworu must have gotten to him...) We got a chance to get up on stage to plug Manifest but some of the things members of the group said sounded more insulting than humourous... ack >_> Moving right along.
After AVCon was, praise the lord, an afterparty. After certain goings on lovelife-wise, I needed to get smashed. Had a bit of a drinking game with Grant, aka SectorX4, but had to give in when I realised there was a 12 hour bus ride ahead of me the next day. Eight drinks in under an hour isn't too bad though! I shall pwn him at Manifest ^_~ So we all drank, wore Amy's hats, chatted, and sketched. Yeah, I'm teh type who tends to whip out her sketchpad and start drawing at the most odd times. We were kicked out after 1am, and wandered back to the hostel. Grant stuck an AVCon sign to me ^^; Once we got back to the hostel my angst from earlier kicked in, and I had to literally run away from the Manifestees to compose myself. Nichole followed, kindly offering me a shoulder to cry on, and we had a nice long chat.
When I was somewhat presentable, we went out on the balcony with the Manifestees and AVConites, but Tom and I had to depart the crowd early seeing as our bus left at 8:30am that day >.<
Something really freaky happened that night. I went to sleep pretty fast, and when I woke up in the middle of the night, I was standing outside our room about to open the door. And I have absolutley no recollection of how I got there or what happened. That's never happened to me before. So I'm a freaking sleepwalker now? Needless to say, last night I put a bunch of suitcases and such against my door to lock myself in TT___TT I'm officially freaked out.
Anyway. We got back to Melbourne around 9, and as we waited at Melbourne Central for a train, a guy recognised the Madman logo on my bag. He was a bit of a freak, as were the other two guys on the train who also recognised it >_>
As usual, I ate practically nothing for the period of time I was away. I had but one small snack a day, like three small dimsims or a sausage with bread.
... I'm still freaking exhausted @_@
