Friday night I had spent the night at Louis's so I could have my hair straightened first thing Saturday morning, so we were able to leave together and more or less on time that day. Louis managed to shove the few things he'd need during the day (wallet, phone, big-ass gun) into the goodie-bag the con gave out on Friday so he could get around the no-bookbag policy of the Dealer's Room. If I remember correctly, I believe I did the same.

We knew that Saturday was going to be the biggest day of the con, the day most heavily attended, the day we should look out for most of our friends. One of the best places to hang out and people-watch is the main stairs leading to the main building of the con, where most of the panels and the dealer's room were housed. Louis, being dressed as Vash, got asked for TONS of pictures, and I'm happy to report that Sailor Moon must still be relatively popular because I snapped quite a few senshi with my camera, and was asked to pose for a few pictures myself.

First and foremost, though, we had to find My Tiny, Jamie! And we did! Yay! And we got to hang out for a bit, and there was so much hugging that I thought I was going to explode into millions of little pieces of heart shaped confetti. I wish we could've spent even more time together, but you know how these cons are--you're running from one event to another, from one person to another, that by the end of it you feel like you barely saw anybody and even what you did see ends up becoming one big blur. But Jamie was definitely one of the highlights of Marvel's and my Saturday.

We met up with SO many other friends, too. Sheli-chan looked awesome as always. Selphie needs to be seen for more than five minutes at a time (especially considering WE LIVE IN THE SAME FREAKING TOWN!) Andrea made a beautiful Aeris. For one reason or another I didn't get to get a photo of Kaine Maxwell as Fire Luigi and Ranma as Luigi side by side, that would've been pretty sweet, so if anyone ELSE got that shot, let me know. Running into Joel AKA DDR Boy is always awesome.

I let Louis go off on his own into the Dealer's Room first so I could hang out a bit with some friends. I ran into Scott dressed as Han Solo, which was nice because I don't think we had talked since Otakon the year before, and barely then. Danii looked absolutely adorable as Tohru, and Biku-chan looked so good as Queen Gorgo that even I recognized automatically who she was dressed as (something I have trouble doing unless I'm an undying fan of the series.) But the best part of this was, as I was talking to Scott, all of a sudden I felt an elbow on my shoulder and there was s0ni in her black Spidergirl costume lounging next to me. She had totally ninjaed up beside me without my noticing it! Thankfully she wasn't after my wallet or anything.

Even funnier was the Japanese couple who posed with her and another Spiderman cosplayer. They looked so much like a pair of Japanese tourists in the Marvel Universe world, who of course would want their photo taken with Spidey, that I had to laugh. It was cosplay bringing fantasy to life at its finest.

As we were just coming out of the dealer's room, we found Jess! She had made her costume herself AND dyed her hair for cosplay--now that's dedication. She looked absolutely adorable as Asuka and I think Louis had to work very hard to contain himself, and I don't blame him. :) We also met her two friends, Ethan and Dante.

After our tour through the dealer's room, we met up with Tony K again who both Jess and I had more or less scheduled photoshoots with, and tracked down Oshidori, who he also wanted to shoot. Finding Oshi was not a problem; she was in a THRONG of fanboys and fangirls who were squeeing themselves over her incredible Molotov Coqtiz costume. We made our way (the girls and Lou being stopped for photos every few feet) to the roof of the parking garage for pics.

The best part was Tony running to his car to get a katana for Oshi to pose with (he couldn't carry it around because it was live steel), and Oshi needing to dial her phone but being unable to because of her gloves, so she borrowed Jess's fingers. Literally. Instead of asking Jess to dial for her, she took Jess's finger in her hand like she was holding a pen and used her finger as a stylus to dial. It was too funny, especially the look on Jess's face.

At some point we also ran off for a quickie photoshoot with David Ng, but we couldn't steal him for very long as he was Head of Photography for AnimeNEXT. He got some great shots anyway, though! Some people work very well under pressure. (Even if they have to let off steam the next day. ::wink::)

One of the funnier stories of the day was, as I was posing for a photo for Tony, I saw a really awesome Utena cosplayer in Utena's white duelist outfit from the artbooks, and I shouted to Jess to please photograph her and give her one of my cards. Utena looked at me and said, "Crissy, I am NOT going away until you recognize me!" or something to that effect. It was Kiwi Chickie/Cassie/Dave Thomas (?) That's like...the FOURTH convention in a row or so that I haven't recognized her. In my defense, the one time we hung out out-of-costume, at Japan Day 2007, I recognized her right off the bat. She's just one of those cosplayers that's so good, you can't see past the character.

At some point after the shoot, Lou, Jess and I decided to go to dinner at a restaurant whose name I've already completely forgotten, but had this neat beach-side theme going on, and Louis had way too much salt in way too many margaritas. And apparently, if you get the fruity drinks (which came with very fruity little animals in the drink, and in that case I mean "fruity" in both senses of the term) you got a free shot of tequila. Oy.

Then I got handcuffed to Jesus. The less said about that, probably, the better. Although I will say that I've never been so happy to see B-chan in my life, and I never suspected that Rob would be so good at picking locks. And that Louis is a saint for being relatively cool with all that I just hinted at.

In my defense, I thought they were trick handcuffs. That's apparently never an assumption you should make.

Sometime after dinner, we found Tony again and wandered over to a more secluded set of stairs leading up to one of the hotels in the complex, and took a few Super Sailor Mars photos. I recruited Jailbait to be Tuxedo Kamen in a few of them, which came out really great, and then proved I was willing to risk life and limb for cosplay as I climbed out onto a 3 foot wide ledge that was at least 11 feet in the are, wearing a mini-skirt and high heels, just for a few cool photos. Louis positioned himself underneath me, but I wasn't sure if it was more to cushion my landing if I fell, or to look up my skirt.

What could we possibly follow that up with? A game of Munchkin, of course! Munchkin is this really neat D&D parody card game that Tony got us into a few months ago, and we've been slowly addicting other people with ever since. Tony had one of the other versions, a Star Wars and Star Trek (among other sci-fi shows) parody called Star Munchkin, that we hadn't tried yet. What followed was quite possibly The Most Epic Game of Munchkin, ever. It's really only meant to be played by around four or five players, and we had...nine. And except for Louis, Tony, and myself, everyone else had to be taught to play from scratch.

Honestly, I was just happy to be sitting down at this point. My dogs were barking.

During The Most Epic Game of Munchkin, Ever, I got a call from Ranma asking me to come over to where the masquerade was just letting out. I explained to him that I couldn't, because I was embroiled in The Most Epic Game of Munchkin, Ever, so he told me that he'd come to me, and that he had a surprise for me. A few minutes later, who should he show up with in tow, but Rhi-chan, as a GORGEOUS Princess Mars, and her friend Risako, who I kinda-sorta knew through LJ and who looked absolutely adorable. It was great to just kind of sit and talk with them a bit.

As we were leaving Saturday night, we passed Biku-chan and Danii again, on their way to the rave. They begged us to come with them, but there was no way in hell. Once you've spent all day in high heels, you want nothing better than to go home and rest. Or, maybe I'm just finally showing my age. :)

So, we left, to rest and relax and get ready for the next day.