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You can also pick up perishable food at The Market Safeway, which is an easy walk, at the corner of S Second St and E San Fernando.
I grab all my dry goods before I leave then grab milk, juice, cheese, etc. there.

I am also a big fan of sandwich makings which keep well in the fridge and are easy to slap together for that 3 am fix.

I have been a big fan of the video rooms for some time.

First kudos to the room techs who waited to the correct time to start. I always hated missing the beginning of a program because they started early.

That said I had a couple issues this year.

Two different movies cut off because of bad content scheduling:
First was the Phoenix Wright movie which only had the credit sequence cut off (maybe 5 minutes). Unfortunately the movie continues to run all the way to the end under the credits, so some wrap up scenes were lost. Someone turned off the film and said we had to get out so they could get ready for Midnight Hentai. There should have been a buffer between the events.

The other bad choice in scheduling was starting Antique at 2:30 on Monday and then kicking us out at 4:00 so we missed the last 20 minutes of the film. It is 105 minutes run time so it should never had been started if that was going to be the case. Plus Antique was 2 separate files and the room attendant didn't load the second one in the play list so the first half started over and we had to get his attention to change it.

Minor issues:
Accurate start times next to the video listings would be great. The grid is hard to tell sometimes when something starts. The Asian Film room had times posted and that was awesome.

What happened to video descriptions? They weren't in the program or even posted on the boards outside the rooms. I more than once explained what an anime was about to someone checking the info boards.

The multiple formats that are used in the rooms often make it difficult for the room techs. An example was the Phoenix Wright film that was started in the Apple player but would not show the English subtitles unless it was loaded in VLC.

Not an issue just a suggestion:
What about automating the process? Another large con that I go to with 6+ 24 hour video rooms has everything automated with count down screens telling what the next program is and when it starts. No room attendants, just a desk outside the rooms manned 24 hours in case there is an issue.

Otherwise I enjoyed what I saw. And I always enjoy taking a break from the con by grabbing a chair in the video rooms and watching some cool shows.

Was playing Rifts.

Playing a little SpiralKnights and just got in the closed Beta for The Secret World.

I have a LOTRO account as well.

Here is the Wiki article for reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightmare_%28Japanese_band%29

The other thread where people were discussing Igaguri Chiba was locked for going off topic so I wanted to start another one.

Please keep this thread about Igaguri Chiba and Sendai Kamotsu.

Oh and Nightmare as well since according to wiki (while not an authoritative source) Sendai Kamotsu is just the members of Nightmare! ;D

So does Chiba really equal Yomi?

So I wonder if there is chance then of Nightmare playing? Playing a double show so to speak. ;D

I just attended Nova Albion for the first time this year. So I already have a head start on the theme. I definitely will wear steampunk on Sunday and will try to come by the gathering.

Now I definietly need to finish the breather/gas mask I started...

Hey CaptainYossarian, and all others interested in Cthulhu, I now have Mansions of Madness, and will likely bring that.

That sounds really fun. I haven't played it before, but I've heard its quite good. Count me in.

Damn I also just bought that game! We will have to give it a try.

Have you played it yet?

I will be there for the whole weekend. The big Chinese new year parade is also that weekend over in China Town.

I really enjoyed LM.C and Flow last year.

Abingdon Boys School
Lc5
Dog in a Parallel world orchastra
exist†trace

um.... the J-pop summit is during the week of Sept 13 thru the 17th... [as in monday thru friday]

where as the Hyper Con is Saturday and Sunday only...

how is there a time conflict there? :P

Actually there is a street fair on Saturday as part of the J-Pop Summit. See the info on the AOD page: http://www.aodsf.org/aod/animelane/

So I can see where there might be a conflict. :P

I have been wanting to go to ComicCon for a few years now but cash has been tight as I have had to save up for my trip to GenCon in Indianapolis (third year going). Next year I am probably going to skip it and that will free me up for AX or ComicCon.

Fun note about GenCon: while it is primarily a convention for role playing games and board games, they have a hotel floor devoted to anime events. So it's like a mini anime convention. It even has its own artist alley.

Yeah I was please at the turn out. Thanks for starting this thread Rodney_Pheonix. I had a good time with everyone playing mahjong. I will work on Vera for next year. Thanks for the help with the tile names Green_Tea!

I will post a link to the pictures as soon as I get the uploaded to photo bucket.

Oh and having 5 Kaylees was awesome!

Unfortunately, we didn't see you CaptainYossarian.  We waited until 9:30 and then joined another group for our game on Saturday.

It was nice meeting you Patrick, and it was good to see you at Momoi's concert as well. :)

Oh my, what a comedy of errors, that other group was me! I guess I didn't connect that at the time, because one of the guys in my group seemed to imply he was one of you, so I was waiting for the other of you guys--so we did play after all! Sorry about the confusion, I didn't mean to "stand you up", as it were. Hopefully we can play again next year (and by the I'll probably have some expansions)--it was a lot of fun, and we actually won too. Next time we'll have to work up from Yig.

Ahhh... I had thought that might have been you actually. Well I am glad we got our game in and had the extra 2 players. Next year we will take down a tougher boss.

It was cool meeting you both.

Dracil - I had a blast following (stalking?) Momoi all around the con at her mini quests. One of my friends won the dessert with Momoi... on his birthday no less.

For me this con was better than last year. Between all the musicfest concerts, Momoi quest, gaming in the game room, panels, and videos I was very satisfied. It all depends on what you are there for I guess.

I personally saw less lolita cosplays than previous years (been going since the con moved to the San Jose convention center). Anyways lolita is firmly in the otaku and anime culture so saying it doesn't belong at Fanime is a bit off the mark in my opinion. Fanime has a lolita fashion show and there are lolita dealers in the dealers hall. I mean what about the storm troopers? Or the Ewok? Or the Firefly cosplays? Or the Star Trek cosplays? Or Frank-n-Furter (Rocky Horror)? Or all the video game cosplays? None of them are anime related. For the record Japanese cosplayers cosplay all of the above and much more. Cosplay is not strictly anime.  Quoated from wikipedea:

Cosplay (コスプレ, kosupure?), short for "costume play", is type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan. Favorite sources include manga, anime, tokusatsu, comic books, graphic novels, video games, hentai  and fantasy movies. Role play includes portrayals of J-pop and J-rock stars, Taiwanese puppet characters, science fiction characters, characters from musical stories, classic novels, and entertainment software. Any entity from the real or virtual  world that lends itself to dramatic interpretation may be taken up as a subject. Inanimate objects are given anthropomorphic forms and it is not unusual to see genders switched, with women playing male roles and vice versa.

Ok sorry, end of rant.

Either late night would be fine with me. I also lean toward Saturday night but if that doesn't work out for Dracil then Sunday night is fine.

So far I count three of us, anyone else interested?

I am more free for Arkham Horror in the late evenings (after 9 pm) mostly, as I plan on the concerts on Friday and Sunday. Saturday I am free earlier. Though unfortunately now that I have seen the schedule, Saturday afternoon will not be available for me. Early Sunday afternoon is looking free.

So my vote is for late night horror.

do people still walk around in cosplay costumes in the halls after hours?!?! ha ha

Cosplaying seems to tapper off in the wee hours. Most of the people cosplaying at that time of night are still wearing the same one they had on from earlier that evening. Though I have seen some cool late night only cosplays, including character pajama outfits.

During con I average 5-6 hours of sleep. Though I make sure I get a full nights sleep Thursday night to carry me through the rest of the short nights.

Of course if I am feeling tired I have been known to cut out early for bed.

I went without sleep once for the last night of con. But I was a zombie the next day. Glad I didn't have to drive. I passed out on the car ride home. Now I just stay Monday night at the hotel and recover.  ;D

I attack my schedule with several highlighter colors. One color is for events that I will definitely attend. Then I use one color for events that I would like to see if I am free. And finally I use one for events that sound cool but I can easily skip (video rooms often fall into this category).

That way I am all set. I can plan for the big events and them make quick decisions on the rest depending on circumstances. I almost always have some place I can go sit down even if its 4 am in the morning. I fill the rest of the time with all the open ended events like the game room, artist alley, dealer room, swap meet and maid cafe.

*whew*  :o