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Single Barrel is an excellent spot for quiet conversation.  The wait can be a while, though, and the drinks are as pricey as they are delicious (they are very good).  Not really a place to host a large gathering, but if people hit it off and want to break off into smaller groups, it's a very nice speak easy to drink at for a while.

A room gathering would be the most cost effective and also make for the best environment for actually communicating.  Tanq gets pretty loud and fills up quite a bit.

(I have no idea what a "swader" is.  ???)

An abbreviation of "persuaders" I'd imagine.

In other news I've been devoting some time to Spiral Knights.  A "free" to play MMO that's something of a cross between Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and Phantasy Star Online.

The lack of miso in this thread is disappointing.

The Big 5 to Costco plan is sound in theory alone.  You're going to run into the human factor, which in all honesty can be more dangerous than the zombies.  You know how zombies are going to act, you only think you know how humans will.  You are not the only one that's going to think to go to a Big 5 for some weapons.  Will you be the first one there?  Will other people be there when you get there?  Will those people be willing to share?  Unless you happen to be outside a closed Big 5/weapons store/etc when the zombie outbreak happens, that part of the plan probably won't work out the way you'd want it to.  I say closed because you're probably going to have a hard time robbing them if there are employees there.  Though I suppose Big 5 is really just retail, so they probably wouldn't put up too much of a fight.  

Costco is a little better of a plan.  Most fools when pressed with the thought of the zombie apocalypse think they're gonna go load up on guns at the local "free guns to you and only you because no one else is thinking to try and get guns now, depot."  Costco is a little more subtle.  Plenty of supplies, big steel roll-up doors.  Once you can get it locked down zombies will be hard pressed to get in.  It's a great place to be if you can manage it.  Key word if.  San Jose has a million people in it.  Never mind if any of them are thinking of going to Costco, that's still a lot of people panicking and trying to get somewhere.  You think traffic is bad during rush hour?  Navigation through the city is going to be a nightmare.  Also there's no guarantee that you'll be the first one there.  It might already be locked down once you get there.  Whether the people inside are willing to let you in or not is a crap shoot.

Then again, there's also the variable of the outbreak itself.  How quickly do people find out about it?  How fast are they identified as "zombies?"  At what point does mass panic spread through the city?  How quickly are the zombies themselves spreading the infection.  Any of these factors can make Big 5 or Costco viable or impossible.  


As to the con itself, we're all dead.  Fifteen thousand plus otakus (2009 attendance) and some convention staff?  Good luck trying to coordinate anything and making it happen.  Once the zombie threat becomes real (banging at the doors, first person bit, etc) there's going to be mass chaos.  The asshole intelligent ones will probably have abandoned the group long before it ever got to that point.  Best of luck to the noble ones in trying to organize the masses.  

Of course, the scenario presented allows for time to fortify.  So let's play with it a bit.  First and foremost a chain of command has to be established.  Someone(s) has to be able to step up into a leadership position and start handing out orders.  People are stupid, they will fsck "it" up without direction.  For the amount of people involved, you're going to need a large group to manage everyone.  The best way to handle this would be to just have Fanime Staff take over.  In no way am I saying they would be the best suited for handling the oncoming zombie apocalypse, but they already have an established hierarchy of sorts.  Imagine fifteen thousand people trying to decide on a few hundred people they want to lead them.  It just isn't viable.  For better or worse we rely on Fanime Staff to run this, because it's the only way anything could get done.  Different departments would be assigned to handling different groups of con goers.  Not sure how many departments there are so for the sake of easy numbers we're going to say that there are fifteen.  This means each department would be in charge of a thousand people each.  Even with a pre-established set of leaders, it's still not going to be easy.  Naturally each department head would have to recruit more into their ranks to manage that many people.  Good luck.  Oh, and this is all conveniently ignoring the fact that there are going to be a few thousand people who think they know how to handle the zombies better than the people put in charge.  Never mind that the convention center staff probably won't want to be forced into listening to the people that make Fanime happen.

The idea of destroying the stairs and escalators and giving up on the first floor is almost a good idea.  Unfortunately those stairs aren't the only way to the second floor.  Behind the Exhibit Halls are loading docks with ramps on the outside of the building leading up (assuming this pdf I'm looking at is accurate)  But if we're assuming that we can break down the stairs and escalators to be unusable, then I see no reason why we can't blast the concrete and steel ramp out from the back of the con.  Cutting off elevators is easy, just summon them all to the second floor and pull the emergency stop levers.  I would recommend breaking them.  You don't want the option available for zombies to get up.  This is unfortunate, since without stairs or elevators, it's going to be very difficult to get in and out of our area.  Though on the meta, scenario is for the most part won at that point.  The survivors can live for the four days presented without food and drink until the military arrives and cleans house.  In reality, you're going to run into all kinds of problems.  Even if we know the time line, giving up food and drink for four days is not going to be easy.  You run into that pesky human thing again.  People are going to get restless.  They're trapped on a floor with thousands and thousands of people.  Below them they have countless zombies hungering for the flesh of the living.  They're also hungry, thirsty, and probably exhausted.  Factor in that even though we all enjoy anime, we don't all get along.  Something is likely going to break at some point.  

Having access to the hotels attached to the convention center would help in at least spreading people out to avoid inner conflict.  We're going to assume that we somehow obtained access to all the rooms.  Perhaps the electronic locks are all turned off and people will have to rely on dead bolts.  The safest way to deal with the hotels would be to destroy the stairs leading to the first floor and disable the elevators (again, we don't want to give any remote chance for zombies to get to our level).  Anyone who wants to go to a higher floor will have to leg it.  This also, assuming the plumbing still works, makes it a lot easier to ration water to everyone.  I imagine most everyone will want to be on the lower floors so they don't have to walk up as many flights of stairs (personally, I'm heading to the top floor.  If zombies manage to get to us, they're going to have a long way before they can even think about chewing on me).  This group will have to facilitate the distribution of people.  

Even with all that there's likely a thousand and a half factors that I've missed.  And that's why I don't think we'd survive.  There's just too much room for shit to hit our fan.  

Personally I'm just gonna get three of my friends together.  Three of us will grab uzis, one of us will take a shotgun for witches, then we'll run out into the city in search of the next saferoom. 

Ayuzawa x Usui from Kaichou wa Maid-sama have quickly climbed to the top of my list.
Keiichi x Belldandy also ranks high.

Even if I was a Blizzard fan I wouldn't go to BlizzCon. For the price of going to that once, I could register for 3 years of Fanime, or for Sakura-Con, Fanime, and AX for one year. :P

The trick to BlizzCon is selling what you get.  Back when they handed out beta keys, it was easy enough to make money  from the whole thing.  Also some of the BlizzCon exclusive merchandise can be turned over for a healthy sum.  I think I was able to make a hundred bucks reselling the Starcraft Poker Set.

Also it's a fun chance to meet guild mates and make a party time.

My friends and I are road tripping to GenCon this year.  Gots me a Heroscape tournament to win.  I'll have to look into the anime events.  I remember they had showings and such last year,  but I never really looked into it in depth as it was my first year.

Besides that I've got BlizzCon and PAX on the agenda.  Driving to all of them.

I was pleased to see Sister and Hoshii from Arakawa Under the Bridge. 

And if you see a pizza guy, try to avoid the "Oh is that for me?" or "I'll take that off your hands!" jokes.  They're not as original as you may or may not think they are.

Looks like I may show up on Saturday.  Looking at 60/40 at the moment, in favor of me going.

There's a Safeway within easy walking distance of the convention center.  A Safeway is chain of grocery store, for those that don't have them.

Map/Directions here.

I've never run one of these, but I assume for now they're gathering interest and waiting for a rough fanime schedule to come out before setting a time for the games.  It would suck to set up a time and date only for the DM to find out there's a panel they really want to go to set up for the same time. 

That said, I will likely have to pull my name out of this hat.  Unless the game is held in the evening, I will likely be busy for most of the day.

There's a Safeway Market on 2nd and E San Fernando. Not as well stocked as a full grocery store, but it should supply you with everything you're looking for. Also in easy walking distance from the con.

That's the phone number for Oakridge Mall, not ININ.

was walking down then street and cursed themself for not playing Zangief more because at that very moment a bear burst out of a mailbox and started fighting people for money.

Do you play at the con, online, or organize play sessions at someone's house?

In either case, I may be interested.

AIM: TandemStryfe

Wouldn't it be easier to make a semi-public chat?  Or was this tried in the past and resulted in too many spam bots?

Are there many Left 4 Dead 2 players in the Fanime community?  I'm finding it harder and harder to get a good vs match these days.  I don't remember the last time I've made it beyond Dead Center 2 before the other team rages.  At the moment my friends and I are good enough to stomp pubs, but bad enough to get destroyed in Team VS.  : /  I don't know if the community has gone down hill majorly or if the gap between casual and competitive players has just increased that drastically. 

Figured I'd start up a topic for people to share their Steam IDs (or gamertags for you crazy Xbox kids).  If there are enough people to warrant creation, maybe start up a Steam group.  My main goal is to be able to get a full Friends Only VS lobby.  Something low key and friendly enough where people don't mind re-balancing the teams if the skill is clearly weighted to one side or another.  So post your IDs or tags and maybe what you're looking for, be it achievements, expert runs, VS matches, Scavenge matches, Survival, etc.

http://steamcommunity.com/id/tandemstryfe/
I'm down for just about anything.  I prefer versus, but running through Expert or Realism can be fun.  If you add me, feel free to hit me up for a game any time I'm on Steam.  If I don't feel like playing, I wouldn't be on Steam.

Bartender.  As one might imagine, it's about a bartender.  It's a pretty awesome series.  Basically people come in with problems and leave with answers found through alcohol.

I would like to second Left 4 Dead 2, though I don't know if there would be enough interest to actually have a tournament.