The AX Report 2001
by Xoth, Master of Black Magic
Day 4+: Another Con Bites the Dust
The AX Report 2001
by Xoth, Master of Black Magic
Day 4+: Another Con Bites the Dust
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By wake-up time Sunday morning, our room was a pretty thorough mess. Empty soda cans littered the room, a large mound of used towels occupied a space under the bathroom sink, and discarded CD shrinkwrap glimmered brightly in the morning sunlight. Call it pity for the hotel’s poor housekeeping staff, call it a sense of duty as a responsible guest, call it simply boredom on my part—I felt the need to start cleaning up. I’d like to say that the maid found the room in perfect order when I left the next day; in fact, I’d like to say they at least didn’t have to pick up all our trash. But let’s face it: cleaning a room occupied by eight other people for 3 days is a lot like watching a man wrestle an enraged bear. You kinda stand there, wanting to do something, but damned if you know what it is you can do in a situation like that. After standing there for awhile, watching the metaphorical man metaphorically get mauled by the metaphorical bear, I did what any sane person would do: I metaphorically walked away and pretended nothing out of the ordinary was happening. |
However, after that it was time to get serious
again, for we were headed down to the dealers’ room for the last
time. When going to the dealers’ room on the last day of the
convention, you must keep in mind several things. 1) By this time,
anything you wanted to get is gone. 2) What’s remaining is being
sold cheap. 3) If something cheap does catch your eye, it’s probably
going to catch/has already caught someone else’s. 4) As it is the
last day, and as otaku are not the most well-adjusted people in the world,
unpleasantness, oftentimes physical, will inevitably ensue from #3.
Armed with that knowledge (and an arsenal of deadly weaponry), we took one
last moment to wish each other good luck and then plunged into the
melee. Due to repeated blows to the head with baka mallets and the
like, I cannot recall the carnage I witnessed that day. If I ever
have a post-traumatic-stress-related flashback, perhaps I’ll share it—but
not until then.
Tim: By now I shouldn’t have to tell you that most of that was total BS. Honestly, I don’t even think that there were “last day discounts.” Then again, I don’t recall buying anything on Sunday, so maybe there were, and I just didn’t see anything that was especially worth buying. Meh. |
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 .. So sorry, but we do have this lovely consolation gift... |
Well, there was only one last thing to do: go to the awards ceremony and see Otaku Generation get their prize for winning the Karaoke Competition. So we did just that, heading back out to the theater which had caused us so much aggravation on Thursday night. We arrived at the end of the art auction and listened in as some rich otaku (yes, apparently, they do exist) blew—err, invested thousands of dollars in anime artwork. Of course, it was for charity, so the money was going to a good cause; still, I heard jaws hit the floor (mine included) shortly after the auctioneer announced a bid of ten thousand for one particular piece. No kidding. Ten-freaking-thousand. And some pieces didn’t go for much less, either. Well, after that came the awards ceremony, and we cheered as we watched the two members of Otaku Generation walk up to the stage to receive their prize. They—what? What happened to the other three? Oh, well, apparently, they left early, so Golbez and another guy accepted the trophy. Well, not at first. Golbez was a little confused at first and grabbed the novelty check that was the SPJA’s donation to charity. After a bit of hilarity, things were straightened out, and they left with the trophy instead. |
| At that point, there wasn’t much else to see, so we
could’ve gone back to the room and—sat around. Instead, we stayed a
little longer and watched the closing ceremonies, which included the
winning music videos (YAY!!), the presentation of the check to a
representative of the charity (heh), and some parting words from the
guests of honor. (Zzzzz... ;) With the end of that, AX 2001 was well
and truly over. But there still remained a number of hours to kill
before the three of us remaining were to head back to LAX and then to our
homes. So what did we do? Daran went out to say his goodbyes
to the Para Para Paradise machine, and I guess Mabis went with him.
I honestly don’t remember whether or not we got dinner. Anyway,
after that, we decided that it would be a good idea to hit the sack early,
since we were leaving the hotel at an ungodly hour. We packed up as
much as possible, arranged for a shuttle and a wake-up call, and went to
bed. (actually sleeping in beds too, which was probably the only
semi-decent result of being the only three still in the room. :D)
Let me end by saying that we had to get up at 4am in the morning—yes, 4am—to check out by 5 to be at LAX by 6:30 to catch our respective morning flights back to our respective homes. And let me also refer you back to Day 1, where my journey began. And here I leave you. :) |
 Good question... |
Back to:
[ Intro ] [ Day 1 ] [ Day 2 ] [ Day 3 ]
Now onward to:
[ Miscellaneous ]
Disclaimer: This account contains a lot that could offend people. Sexual content. Drug use. Profanity. Violence. Celebrations of Japanese culture. Non-white people. Crudely drawn pictures. Sentence fragments. If anything in this account offends you, find another web page. If your kid reads something that offends you, tell them to find another web page. If you’re really ticked off by it, then e-mail me (cosmic_chicken@excite.com) so I can ignore you. Certain characters, events, etc. referred to and depicted in this account come from Japanese animated films and television series and are copyrighted by their respective companies. Whatever the SPJA and Anime Expo have copyrighted belongs to them. Text, original images, and image manipulations © Tim Kaneshiro.
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