Messages

As for the white contacts for Toph, you are aware that any contact that covers your pupil completely will also render you blind, right? You'll need a buddy to lead you around the con. If you're fine with that, they can be found for like 70 after some searching for phrases like "white-out contact." I thought there used to be lenses that were like the white-outs but had a pinprick pupil, so they weren't totally accurate but neither were you totally blind, but I can't seem to find any.

As for bare feet, you could try something like Dance Paws but it would end up being up to the discretion of the person calling you on it as to whether that would count as barefoot or not. I would say just get some flesh colored or appropriate-looking (like what she would wear if she DID wear shoes) flip-flops and just step out of them for pictures. Just make sure to step a few feet away so they're not just sitting right there at your feet in the picture, you know? That same goes for bags, just set them down (within your eyeline, of course) for pics but out of frame.

If I recall correctly, several years ago on my very first Fanime visit with my high-school anime club, the (Senior, aka over 18) club president had intended to use his mother's card to pay for the room up front and then would be reimbursed with cash. He was not allowed to do so until he could get her on the phone and have her speak to the hotel receptionist and then fax a letter of authorization for use to the hotel, allowing her son to use the card.

I would speak with the hotel about if this would be a feasible plan for any over-18 but without personal card people, do NOT take my experience as fact that it would be allowable. This was also at the Marriott, fyi.

Also, it seems worth mentioning that if you arrive at the con/hotel before your scheduled check-in time, or if there is not a room currently available (late checkout people, cleaning, etc.) the hotel will always happily hold your luggage for you so you aren't stuck lugging it around while you try to kill a few hours until you can check-in for real.

Sucrose and I had to hunt the booth down by asking people who had already gotten their badges (because we couldn't make the assigned time) and even with explicit directions, it was a little awkward just seeing a booth full of Super Mario pins. I remember the year before, the booth that the badges were at had put up a little "We have Fanime Forum Badges here!!" sign, and I think that same sort of thing would have been quite helpful.

All that said, after some tracking we got our badges and love them! Thank you, Suspi, and sorry for making you trek them back to us.

My group and I came prepared, and as a result, none of us went hungry or malnourished all weekend. We brought one cooler (which we filled at the hotel from the ice machines) and used the hotel-provided coffee maker to heat water. We had various sandwich fixings (including both normal sliced bread and actual loaves of bread, and a simple slice of bread with jam or butter is a beautiful snack) for both meat sandwiches and pb&j, milk and cereal (the cheap-o offbrand bags, which taste just as good), granola bars, fruit bars, baby carrots, oranges, pears, string cheese, and pudding. We also had a case of bottled water, and those flavor packets to make it lemonade, as well as 3 different types of hot tea. We also brought like 4 Cup Noodles, and they went uneaten because there was so much more satisfying food available!

All that for 15 bucks a person, and we were all fed all weekend, including a few moochers. (We went to Jack in the Box once for shakes. XD)

Still no takers on the Fatal Frame cosplay? Three people. o.o; One blonde, two brunettes. All in kimonos.

Found this while browsing people's photos.

[Haibane Renmei]

Anybody get me and Sucrose on Sunday as Rakka and Kuu from Haibane Renmei?

I stayed at the Marriott, along with three other people in a double/double.

Pros:

• Super comfortable beds and soft sheets.
• Big enough rooms to easily set up the extra table they provide and finish sewing a last minute cosplay without being in everyone's way, and also set up an entire food area since we brought a cooler and lots of non-perishables to save money.
• Coffee maker to heat up water for drinks and soups.
• Nice shower.
• Both upon check-in and check-out, the bellboy who brought up our luggage cart let us use the service elevator, so we didn't have to wait forever for an empty one.
• Very, very nice and helpful bellboys and valets.
• Upon check-out, it didn't even take the half-hour they estimated to get a luggage cart sent up.
• Because we were on like the 23rd floor, while it took a little while to wait for an elevator during the con, once one came up, there was always room because there were only 2 floors above us so they were never already packed, like it happens on the 10th floor or so.

Cons:

• The woman at the counter when we checked in was an idiot, and rude. First she couldn't run my card through no fault of my own (and the card worked fine the rest of the weekend), so we had to pay cash for the full weekend up front (which incurred me 9 dollars in ATM fees since the nearest one had a $200 transaction limit and a 3 dollar fee per use), and she tried to charge me full-price for the valet parking all weekend, instead of the half-off Fanime price, and tried to argue when I brought it to her attention. She then hands me our keys and says "There you go, one king room. *gleam!*" Um, no, bitch. I reserved a double/double. It may be first-come first-serve under normal circumstances, but I have 4 people going into this room and we are NOT paying an extra fee for a rollaway to still be a bed short! I know this happened quite a lot one year (i think two years ago) and remember the outrage from the con at the Marriott for doing this, and the specific instructions to go find a con higher-up if the hotel tried to pull this on you. After a lot of "I RESERVED a double-double." "It's just a request, which will not necessarily be honored." "We have 4 people! We can't all easily fit in a King room." "Well, we have no double-doubles." either a manager or some other counter person (not sure which) popped up and said "Well, lemme cheeeeeck..." and boom, they had a double-double. ...it also would have been nice if you could understand the damn woman. Talked like she had damn cotton in her mouth.
• Lazy maids. They never actually cleaned our room, just took out the trash (and once only emptied ONE of the two full garbage cans).

I had a pretty nice time, if you eliminate that one glaring incident, really. I haven't decided if I'll be back next year, though.

It's a bit of an "if" at the moment, because we really need to get our asses in gear to get them done, but if all goes to plan Sucrose and I will be attending as Jan and Luke Valentine, respectively.

Here we go. It's the full comic page, but I'd like the focus on the actual man. Include the angel if you can swing it, but he's the focal point. Obviously I don't care about the text boxes, as interesting as they are. Thank you!

Wow, that's an amazing picture.  The art looks very Sandman-esce.

I can see the resemblance. The art's by J.H. Williams, from the comic Desolation Jones written by Warren Ellis. All of the art is absolutely stunning, and he does some amazing things with the page layouts and borders.

Here we go. It's the full comic page, but I'd like the focus on the actual man. Include the angel if you can swing it, but he's the focal point. Obviously I don't care about the text boxes, as interesting as they are. Thank you!

I so want one. I haven't posted in like a year, but I still want one. I can almost certainly attest that Sucrose will want one too. We'll get cracking on images.

What's the non-mailing deadline?

fine4me

  w/in

have2wk&everything

like2hear

who writes like this? o.O

They're to busy being hXc to type properly.

I did email staff, but the response I got was "the staff will know how to deal with people without photo IDs". *shrugs* What's going to be just as fun is trying to deal with this for dealer's room and video rooms...

...You don't need ID for the dealers room and video rooms. Just your badge. The only things in the whole con you'd need an ID for other than registration would be the "over 18" events like the hentai room and yaoi bingo and such.

Just fyi, I noticed that people with exceptionally long email addresses (like mine, hurr), the info gets bumped down to the next line and ends up being written on top of "Badge Type: Full Weekend" (or what have you). You can still make stuff out, it's just a little.... odd.

As you can see it's just a little part of the hair that sticks up.  This isnt really even a big thing as I'm sure fans will know I'm suppose to be Shana, but I wanted to try it.

Lots of hairspray and a blow dryer.   Take the little bit you want, spray it so it's almost saturated, and hold it in place and use the blowdryer on it until it's totally dry.

If you're not happy with it, it washes out and you can try again.

Be careful with the blowdryer, though. Use it on cool or only very gently/quickly, since if you stick it there for a minute on high heat, you're going to heat-damage the fiber, which makes it all kinky and gross looking.

Isn't "Anything that looks like or resembles a danger..." a little redundant?

Bah, I still got like a month. Boo. And I know people who are still in session until like halfway through June.

I just wanted to check about the meaning of the "Artists Alley 2008 is full as of 4/1/08 !!!" notice on the Artist Alley page of the main site. This means there are now absolutely no more tables available, meaning no tables for at-con claiming or the like?

I hate to sound skeptical, and this doesn't really affect me per say, but Fanime really is approaching fast, and what are any new maids going to do about uniforms? If we wait much longer, will there be enough time for any new maids to order their uniforms and make sure they fit correctly (as we had some issues with that last year)?

So nothing's changed.

The commentary isn't really necessary.

It is something to worry about though, if you think about it. Fanime's only a couple of months away, and there haven't been any announcements, meetings, or visible improvements in general outside of the activity concerning Extravaganza. Last year, the volunteers already were poorly kept up with what was going on, and now there's even less activity in terms on information.

Precisely my worry and reason for my comment. And while, yes, this that and the other thing may be going on "behind the scenes," it would be nice to be kept up to date or even directly aware that things are even happening. As a confirmed maid next year, I have yet to receive anything, and if not for the fact I ran into Sydney in a book store in SC a few weeks ago, I wouldn't even be certain it were still happening at all.

But Mikey's comment really didn't add anything other than add to the already well-know fact he's discontent with the way things are handled.

Not to actually defend him on this point, but from what it looks like, I don't think anyone considering participating should be content with how things are handled right now. Though, I'm pretty sure that it's still happening-- there's just a null on any updates or information and people are sort of left in the dark. It was a bit of a problem last year, so you figure there'd be some improvement this time.

But there are more staff members in charge of the event now, it seems. I'm sure there are other people other than Sydney to contact, like Julia or Tony.

I'm not saying it's an invalid point by any means, it's just rather old hat from him by this point.

I at least have the leeway of already being prepared and familiar with how things will happen, I just worry for those who would possibly want to participate and may be unable to. The fact that there are others in charge now really only makes the silence all the more dismaying, as that means that there are more people who could be informing the (involved) masses who just aren't, for whatever reason.

I hate to sound skeptical, and this doesn't really affect me per say, but Fanime really is approaching fast, and what are any new maids going to do about uniforms? If we wait much longer, will there be enough time for any new maids to order their uniforms and make sure they fit correctly (as we had some issues with that last year)?

So nothing's changed.

The commentary isn't really necessary.

It is something to worry about though, if you think about it. Fanime's only a couple of months away, and there haven't been any announcements, meetings, or visible improvements in general outside of the activity concerning Extravaganza. Last year, the volunteers already were poorly kept up with what was going on, and now there's even less activity in terms on information.

Precisely my worry and reason for my comment. And while, yes, this that and the other thing may be going on "behind the scenes," it would be nice to be kept up to date or even directly aware that things are even happening. As a confirmed maid next year, I have yet to receive anything, and if not for the fact I ran into Sydney in a book store in SC a few weeks ago, I wouldn't even be certain it were still happening at all.

But Mikey's comment really didn't add anything other than add to the already well-know fact he's discontent with the way things are handled.