Oni-con, 2005:

Friday: Day started out normally. Ended up late for Anatomy, as usual. Worked out afterwards, went home...then whooped for joy. Weekend has come at last! Oni-Con is here!

Then I cried again, for the haircut lady cut my hair way too short. Bah. -_-;

So, what costume did I wear? Why, I was none other than Generic Anime Guy #316: Generic Medic! 

Yep. I had the same Korean hanbok, same black shirt, and same black jeans (well, actually, jeans were new. Rest of it was the same.) What was different? The props, of course! I had on my patented (schyeah, right) first aid, hard-hat combat helmet, my oversized Doctor's scalpel (actually a screaming dagger with a retractable blade...motto of the weekend was, "If it screams, you're doing it right!"), a probe/suppository administering device (a glowing globe of lights, basically. Useful in raves), my First Aid backpack, complete with Duct tape, my Ocarina of Healing (sadly, not too many people noticed this one. I loved playing it for the ones who did notice it, though. =D) the trademark Generic Anime Guy sign, complete with the cute bunny thing from Magic Knight Rayearth (I'll link up the sign image later), and last, but certainly not least, the gigantic syringe.

Simply put, fully extended, it was taller than I was, and weighed just as heavy, too. Fully functional little sucker...the plunger plunged and the needle retracted so I could stab people without worry. =D Thing was made with PVC tubing and various other supplies, and I have Kevin to thank for it. Thanks, bro, I owe ya big time!

Anyway, after getting all of it, I was off to the Con. I got there at around 3-4pm...would've gone earlier, but had to take care of some stuff. <.< Went to the  preregister, got my super-awesome Oni-con badge, went to the bathroom, and tried to put a fake scar on my arm, but unfortunately, that little idea didn't work. The little bugger looked too fake and wouldn't stick, so basically, I wasted $8 on crap. Ah well, at least the episode led me to meet Jan, who is simply put, one of the coolest guys I've met. He changed into his Ryu outfit, which was complete with a duffel bag for carrying his stuff around, and it was his first con. And let me tell you something: he not only looked the part, he WAS the part; Jan's a self-trained fighter, whose feats include backflipping off walls and other random acts of varying awesomeness. Since both of us were attending a con for the first time (well, technically second for me, but it was the first time I wasn't working at one), we decided to team up.

I met a shitload of people from O-Chibicon. I can't remember exactly all the names, all the people, or the order I met em in, but...well, here, I'll list all the people I remember from both O-chibicon and otherwise:

-Rubber Chicken dude (who finally gave me a working e-mail address)
-Daniel, the security guy from last time (yeah, he remembered the drunk guy incident and the missing kid thing, too.)
-Canuck, one of the other security guys (yeah, he remembers, too. Vividly.)
-Shrin! (She didn't recognize me at first. T_T)
-FMA guy with the metal arm and leg (didn't technically talk to him, but I remembered him <_<)
-The guys from the Pose Off, who finally got me to pose at the event (more about that, later. =D).
-The girl from Waldenbooks who wanted me to buy Hot Gimmick. <.<
-The guy who played Spike in O-Chibicon.
-Met a HUGE black guy named Marcus who lifted me EASILY and carried me around his shoulders...like I did with my Syringe. <_<;;;;;
-Arc, who draws as well as he raves (got an e-mail from him, woot!)
-Sean, Jay, Chris, and Nader, who I hereby refer to as a single entity known as the Toga (more about that later). Chris was in a hug monster outfit, which was basically a grim-reaper looking thing that was looking for hugs, Jay was just loafing around with his $60 in liquor (more about THAT later. <_<), Sean was a big guy in a Samurai outfit, and Nader liked my Suppository ball. XD
-CJ! WTH?!
-Vaja and his group...as more Bleach guys! (poor Vaja couldn't make it to Sunday, though. Poodoo.)
-Laura-chan! (...See O-Chibicon entry for similar reaction. She and her Fuu costume, simply put, were gorgeous. Various attempts to talk were hindered by loss of jaw control. That, and the crowd loved to push. =\)
-Aru and Walter, the Alucard twins! (Oh. Em. Gee. I felt like a total noob compared to their costumes...gotta figure out how they make em. Also gotta figure out how Walter did that bad-ass tattoo on her face.)

There were so many other people, like a girl dressed as a fangirl, and another who was dressed as a geisha who knew actual geisha dances, and others, but eyeah: that's all I can remember right now. Damn this memory of mine. Sorry if I forgot anyone. =|

Anyway, Jan and I spent Friday doing nothing but introducing ourselves to new people, having a bunch of people asking for our pictures, and finding places of interest in the hotel. Places of interest included the "Bridge of Fate," the "Music Gazebo," and our own personal hallway in the video area (air-conditioned and open. It was easily our favorite spot inside the hotel. The rest of the hotel was cramped and AC was usually broken).

We even created our own story arc, where Ryu and Medic were a team who constantly trained with each other and travelled the world in search of new things, Ryu in search of adventure, Medic in search of..."the One" (not saying who or what the "One" is. I'll get the shit beat out of me if I do, hehe). Ryu beat up his opponents, Medic finished em off, healed them, and beat the crap out of em once again. Because Ken ran off with an 800-yen debt, Medic had to take the place of Ryu's new combat/sparring buddy. Interesting, no?

Anyway, besides choreographing interesting fights on the Bridge, and taking pictures, I didn't do much else. Didn't go to most of the panels, went to the dealer's room about once or twice, and didn't watch too much of the anime. Why?

Because talking with everyone was just so much more interesting, dammit. =D I loved it. I got to stab, probe, and give shots to random people the whole day. Even made an enemy of a dog girl and rabid monkey, who I swore to put down if it was the last thing I did (only got to give him one poke of the needle, blast it all).

Afterwards, went to the concert of Phantastic Four..crap, I mean, Phantasmorgria, or something. One of the Visual Kei bands in Japan. Great stuff...they really knew how to stir up the audience. A local group opened up for them, but for the life of me, I can't remember their name...they were great, but their songs were a little soft and slow for an opening act. Ah well.

Aftewards was the MasqueRave, a first-time event in Oni-con. It was...interesting, to say the least. It was a Masquerade Ball...with a rave. Hm. Well, at least I got to eat my only meal of the night there: sandwiches and cake, mm...

Anyway, afterwards was the real Rave, and...wow. Everyone was gushing about how much that DJ rocked, since he actually interacted with the people. Only ones who didn't like the dance were people who didn't like Techno music. =P I lost Jan from there, but I ended up meeting Laura, Aru, and Walter there (although, I couldn't recognize Walter because she was in a mask, sorry Walter ><). Took some pictures, had fun, and we got shut down by the hotel at 1am. =\ Bastards, all of them.

Speaking of which, I hate the Park Plaza hotel now. The new management tried to make us pay $20 in parking per day without beforehand notice, and they forced the con to shut down at 2am every morning. We screwed them over with the parking thing, luckily, but they still won with the shutting down at 2am thing. Bastards.

Anyway, met up with Jan again at the Bridge of Fate, got to talking with more people, and walked back to our cars (I had to move the damned thing to a parking lot about 10 minutes away from the hotel because of the parking BS).

We had an interesting episode there, actually: two spanish guys were pushing their car into the lot because it ran out of gas in 610. They were coming from a club and had no money on hand besides personal checks, and for some reason, I just felt like I had to help the poor guys. So, I took the guys in my car (with Jan in the backseat), brought them to a gas station, bought em a gas tank, filled it with a gallon of gas, brought them back, and gave it to them so they could drive back to the gas station where someone could pick it up. And I told them not to pay me back. Still trying to debate whether or not to tell the mother dearest about it, since the fact that I not only spent money on total strangers but actually let them in my car would freak the shit outta her.

I'll break it to her gently, I guess. I have no regrets. *shrug*

Anyway, went home, went to bed (my body was aching...only part of me I couldn't feel was my knees o.O), and here comes Saturday:

Saturday: Missed like, the first half of the day, because I went to Frank's sister's wedding (which was really nice, and they had a great church to hold it in). Plus, I had to pick up Ken because Daryl couldn't pick him up on time (while doing so, I ended up getting a fucking ticket by a cop because I "didn't stop fully at the stop sign. Putang ina...!) Yeah, I'm still griping about the ticket. =\

By the time I got back, I missed of the big events: the consplay photo session, the cosplay show-off registration, the VG tournaments, and...well, yeah. Missed a big part of what I wanted to do, but w/e, at least I kept a promise to Frank.

Whole ticket thing might've annoyed the shit out of me, but easily forgot about it once I went back to the con. Met back up with Jan again, who was dressed up as a random guy with a Boombox and anime tunes, and we spent some time roaming around and getting people to dance to the Anime tunes we had. Jan changed, and got back into his Ryu costume, and we spent most of our time hanging with Chris, Shaun, and Nader in the gazebo, trying to get people's attention. XD It was great...we had an FF type fight, some squid raving, and yes, even squid-raping. And I gave some more suppositories to random people, and got glomped by some random girls. Interesting. <_<;

Afterwards, went off on my own, wandered around, went to see the cosplay show-off. Awesome and hilarious, even though I couldn't be a part of it.

Let's see...some of the highlights were:

-the Bleach skit that ended with Pikachu
-the girl that recorded the audience
-the girl that sang Melodies of Life in her Princess Garnet costume (wow.)
-the Kitsune costume
-the various Wolfwoods <_<
-the OneHourProductions skit with Reboot (rofl)
-the Hellsing twins
-the Sailor moon trio with the little girl that choreographed the Sailor Moon poses O_o
-Spike-guy dressed as Mugen, another guy dressed as Jigen, and Laura as Fuu (classic how they walked onto the stage, lol)
-Mark's hamster skit
-the Ranma skit
-the beginning skit with some guy in a wrestler suit making fun of anime cons and Houston, and him getting the shit beat out of him by a little 6 year old girl and a guy dressed as Silent Bob <_<

Meh, that's all I can remember, sorry. >< Afterwarsd, we finally got to see the Full Metal Fantasy fanfilm that Vic Mignogna (VA of Edward Elric) starred in...and...good lord almighty, I laughed so hard I burst a brain vessel. Freaking awesome movie, definitely worth going to the con for. XD Anyway, afterwards, went outside and hung out at the gazebo with various people, congratulated Laura, Walter, Aru, and Mark (since they were the only ones from the Cosplay showoff I could find that I knew), and went off to make more chaos with Jan, Daniel, Shaun, Chris, Nader, and Jay. Afterwards, Shaun, Chris, Nader, Jan, and I went to Denny's and scared a crapload of guests with our costumes. Waitress gave us some funny looks, too. Ha, scared regular people for the win. =P

Went back, went to the last part of the Phantastic Fo - goddammit, Phantasmorgria jam session, and afterwards, went to the rave, which was being held upstairs for some weird reason, and met up with Laura, Walter, and Aru. Danced for a bit there, till the hotel manager turned on the lights saying that the rave had to be closed at 11:45pm. This is the clincher: they came at 12:10am, and originally, we were supposed to close at 4:00am before they changed it to the 2:00am deadline. So, them trying to dick us out again didn't go too well with most of the con attendees...there ended up being a massive riot in the front desk, and we ended up scaring them back into the 2am deadline. XD

So, rave got moved back into the air-conditioned concert hall, and from there, we just cut loose and partied. Laura and the others left early, I lost Jan again (tried to find out where the guy was, but no luck), and lost some of the others, but I found Chris, Shaun, and Nader luckily back inside the rave, and we danced till they kicked us out.

Shaun, Chris, Nader, and Jay let me crash at their room for the night, and Jay handed out his $60 of liquor and some cigarettes and they watched some Poker on ESPN Classics. And no, I didn't drink or smoke: biggest thing I did was take a sip of what I thought was apple juice (that turned out to have rum inside), and inhaled about 2 gallons of secondhand smoke. But otherwise, didn't do anything stupid. So yes, I am immune to peer pressure, huzzah. =P

But yeah, in all seriousness, we just had fun there. Messed around with the girls next door, who kept sending us notes from under the door that linked our door to theirs (AIM, 0.1). Said something about having their mom inside there, too...weird. O_o; Anyway, after that, two more guys showed up, and all of us went downstairs to walk around.

Turns out, a lot of people had the same idea: some people were so drunk, they ended up forming a Toga-con. -_-; Everyone went back to get some togas, and spent the rest of the night walking around in togas and generally being drunkard doofuses. Luckily, Laura, Walter, and Aru's group showed up, and I kinda...broke away from the toga group while they were distracted to follow their group. You guys rescued me from a weird situation, thanks. ~_~;

Afterwards, after talking for a bit, I went on my own, and hung out with some people who were wondering where my syringe went. Walked around with two guys, talked with em, and went back to find the toga guys getting kicked out of the spa by security. <.< Went back up to our rooms, watched some more ESPN, and got conked out. Luckily, no one did anything weird in their drunken stupor. Woot, Shaun, Jay, Chris, and Nader are awesome drunks XD (though, Shaun passed out on the toilet. Eurgh).

And so, we hit:

Sunday:

Woke up at 9am with my arm totally asleep. Also, my lungs were still burning from all the smoke from the night before, so I had to walk around to clear it. Met with Jan, found CJ, and talked with a bunch of other people, and went to the Poseoff.

I finally got to participate in something, hehe. First pose was the Yatta pose, which my opponent won (the guy looked like Napolean Dynamite...and his dad looked more like an older brother O_o). Second pose was the Thousand Years of Pain move, which I won (I wonder why?). Third pose, which was our own invented pose, was me doing my Zelda imitation with my Ocarina. Yep, that's right: I was bobbing side to side playing the Zelda theme. Woot. ^^ Won some candy for that, lol.

Afterwards, packed up, and talked with everyone I knew for awhile. We also found the girls who were sending us notes from next door, lol. I started getting tired around noonish, so I decided to go back home after going to the dealers room. Because money was nonexistent, only things I bought were gifts for other people, including this cute Inu-yasha pin for Laura (who I officially declare as the coolest half-filipina chick in Houston...just because. Hope you liked the pin!). Otherwise, only things I brought back from the con were the clothes on my back and the syringe on my shoulders. Ehehe....my arms are still aching from that. ~_~

So...yeah. That's about it. Afterwards, ate at Sonic's with the cousins and watched Domino. Movie was long as hell, but interesting...enough. Keira Nightley's a hottie. Sorta.