Fanime 2015 - Day 0 + 1

Every year Fanime has gone bit differently, and this year is no exception...

Gonna try to post recaps day by day, as it's always much easier that way.  Besides, it's always nice to have a blogging session as a wrap-up and wind-down at the end of the night...

Day 0

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Well, day 0 was actually mostly spent finishing my costume.  However, I needed to stop by the Jo-Ann in Cupertino for more Marigold-colored bias tape (already bought out the stock in San Antonio) and I figured while I'm down there I might as well stop by the convention center and check out the swap meet.  I also stopped by the gaming center while I was there, and witnessed the TGM3 machine setup, woo!  I had one run on Master mode, which ended with an S4 (bleh).  My games played on my account on that board was at 126 from last year I believe (yes, I played over 100 games at last year's Fanime...), so we'll see how many games I end up playing this year.  It's not free this time though, so probably will be significantly less.  I've already played like 3 games of master, 1 of shirase, and 1 of easy and 1 of sakura mode....

Checked out the swap meet, which is always the go-to place for sweet deals on random stuff.  I got a 3D hello kitty jigsaw puzzle (which is going into the "gift pile" since I already have one) for only $1!!!  Got some other random neat stuff too, including Nayuki card sleeves (from Kanon)...I saw some card sleeves with Fate and Vita (from Nanoha) on them too, but in the end I knew I should only get one of them and I decided on the Nayuki one.  The Fate one was a bit too "revealing" if you know what I mean.  Maybe I should have gotten the Vita one though.  Bleh.  It's too bad they didn't have Makoto from Kanon--they had all of the rest of the Kanon girls but not my favorite one.  What the heck?  Also picked up some Di Gi Charat manga--swap meet is always great to get manga because they're like $3 per book...

After that (I tried to go through the swap meet as efficiently as possible since I still had to finish work on my costume) I went back home and got to work finishing the designs on the bottom of my Journey cloak...took so long, omg!  Had to cut out those 32 shapes, iron them all on, and then add two lines of bias tape allllllll the way around.  The cloak is =super= full at the bottom, so even just one line of bias tape going around takes forever....I think it's like 6 yards around or something like that...sheesh.  Was totally worth it though, it looks amazing!

I ended up getting to bed at some ridiculous hour, like 5AM, deciding that it's ok; I would just sleep in tomorrow and get to Fanime late since I didn't have anything to do there in the morning anyhow.

Day 1

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I stopped by work dressed in my full Journey outfit, both to pick up a micro usb cable and to get some free lunch food (and also to show off my costume).  The micro usb cable was for the android device that my friend lent me--the plan was to use it to make Journey chirp sounds while I was walking around the con, but it quickly became apparent that the noise level is just too high for it to be very audible.  Sadness!  Scratch that idea I guess, but it was good in theory...

After packing myself a sandwich, trying to pack everything I could possibly need, starting a load of laundry, etc etc I actually didn't end up making it to Fanime (including parking, etc) until just after 4PM!  So late!  I was slightly anxious about parking since parking over there is really annoying, plus I was really late so I knew all of the nearby lots would be full, but I remembered that last time there was underground parking at Safeway that had room, so I just punched in Safeway and went straight there.  There was parking!  $20 per day (actually ended up being only $14 since I got there so late), which of course is a pain but...whatre you gonna do about it...

I made it, headed straight to the map for cosplay gatherings, walked past the Madoka gathering, and managed to make it to the Steven Universe gathering in time!  They had already started but I hadn't missed all too much yet.  That gathering was really fun!!!  I wasn't sure how many cosplayers to expect for Steven Universe but there were quite a bunch, which was awesome!  They had some really great shots and moments there, hahaha...

After that I met up with Russell to pick up my badge, and then headed straight to the gaming hall where the Tetris Medley tournament (yes, again this year) was going to start.  After another stupid S4 run at the TGM3 machine, we were off.  First round was NES tetris again; I had a good start and it looked like I was going to have a perfect game (mode B) but then I had a drought of I pieces and had to clear lines; I didn't really know how to do it in a way that optimized for least single/double/triple line clears so my score was kind of sucky as a result.  I still have so much to learn about Tetris...feels like I'm just not good at all!  Anyways, first round didn't really matter that much anyways, as they just used it to seed the next round, which was 4p vs in tetris party.  Tetris party is really awkward since the piece previews are confusing as all heck (they go in the wrong order) so I felt really slow and was having a lot of trouble keeping things straight, but still was fine and got through that round.  Round 3 was Magical Tetris Challenge Vs, with the pentaminos and weird tetris shapes and instead of garbage you just get hella OP weird blocks and 5x5 squares and crap.  I managed to beat A-zu-ra and was off to the finals, which was Tetris+Puyopuyo against Alex.  Alex won, partly because he's better at both Tetris AND puyo (I suck at puyo) but also mostly because got the easy cheap kill on me again and again by stacking an all-clear at the beginning (I needed to send garbage earlier, dammit) and clearing it at the transition to puyo mode, causing hella puyo garbage to fall and basically GGing me.  Haha, good times...anyways, I got some random prizes for 2nd place, woo!

Nidhogg tourney was going on while that was happening; I didn't even bother trying to see what the signups were like this time; again I wished I could just show off my movement speed in that game but whatever, why should I care about showing off anyways?  They looked like they were having a blast though, Nidhogg is great because it generates so much hype...the Melee tournament was going on too I think, but no idea what really went on with that either.

After that I pinged Wendy, who I had traded numbers with earlier when picking up badges from Russell.  While waiting for her to deposit her stuff in her hotel room I walked outside in the hallway eating my packed sandwich for dinner and of course (murphy's law) that was the time when people started asking me for photos...so I was totally unprepared, had my sandwich in one hand and phone in the other, but did my best anyways, haha.  I also met another Journeyer!!!  There was a red cloak, also with "first run" designs like me (minus the "person" shapes on the bottom), and I ran up to her waving my hands.  We chatted briefly, commented on each others costumes, and traded contact info so we could meet up again later on Saturday or Sunday to take some more photos and such (yay!).  So awesome and exciting!~

I also ran into Isabelle!  She was sad because she ended up arriving too late to pick up her badge, but Wendy came and we all just hung out for a while.  Eventually we split off and Isabelle went home while me and Wendy went to the swap meet (second time for me).  We scouted out to see if there were any cute things...I actually had some nice finds!  Got a Kuromi plush for $5, and omg!  I ran into this girl who sold me a Little Twin Stars fanbook for $1!  Totally worth....worth everything!  Also got some random Di Gi Charat stuff, also apparently Russell has more of Zhang's stuff (probably more Koge-Donbo stuff...I feel like I already have so much of Zhang's Koge-Dongo stuff hahaha) that I'm supposed to grab later.

After that we headed back to the gaming hall, Wendy accompanied me as we tried out Keyboardmania (getting the modwheel for me)...doooood, Keyboardmania!!!  The game that is super confusing....good times; I haven't played that thing in aaaaaaggges, probably over 5 years!  I only remember them having it once or twice at golfland arcade before it left...Also ran into Christina and her bf, though we were in the middle of playing Keyboardmania so unfortunately I didn't get to chat with them before they took off) Wendy also watched me as I did my TGM3 runs of easy and sakura mode--my first time on both, just to have scores on my account.  I had no idea what the strategy really was for either of them so I'm sure my scores sucked though.  I also spied on the people playing on the 3rd strike machine; I was tempted to go and challenge them but in the end didn't.  Also partly because I ran out of quarters and change and I only had $20s left, didn't want to get $20 worth of quarters....

Wendy left to go back to her room and the con was winding down...I pinged some people but it seemed like everyone else was heading out too.  I did run into Ray doing a TGM3 Master run, but other than that didn't really see anyone.  Since I was out of quarters and because I have an early start tomorrow, I just spent some time out in the hallway with mask on sitting down with my cloak sprawled out pinging people/checking mail on my phone, with people asking to take my photo every so often.  I've been wearing the mask maybe 10% of the time, if that; it's still kind of annoying to deal with, but helps be more "in character" for sure!  I'll have to spend some more time just walking around in character, that would be fun!  I'm really happy with how the whole costume turned out; it feels great!  Other people seem to like it too, yay~  I'm always so happy when people recognize it...

After that it was back off to my car, and back home...tomorrow I'm supposed to try and be there at 10AM as Kikyo for the Rumiko Takahashi gathering...it's pretty late so hopefully I can manage to wake up in time.  If I get up early enough I'll do makeup, but...eh.  I'm not going to be Kikyo for the rest of the day anyways, it's probably not the end of the world if I can't.

Forgot to mention I had the ocarina panel listed on my schedule at 8PM but I was busy hanging out with Wendy and Isabelle and didn't really care to go...the main reason I was interested actually was because they were going to raffle off an ocarina, haha.  *shrug*  Also the only sad part of the whole day was that I lost my Journey bookmark!! =(  I was shuffling things around and it must have fallen out of my pocket at some point...I should have just left it at home or kept it in my bag...dammit.  Well, but it's okay; it's just a bookmark.  Maybe I can get another one at Artist's Alley this year! :)  Didn't have any time for artist's alley or dealer's hall today, maybe I'll check them both out tomorrow?

Looking forward to a full day of con!