Unsurprisingly, Otakon 2006 started off as a comedy of errors. So what else is new?

To begin with, Louis and I had decided last year that we were never taking the Greyhound bus ever again. Screw you, Greyhound! So, we decided to rent a car with Usagi Seion and Rich. This seemed like a brilliant idea--no lines, no "you missed this bus now wait another hour and a half for the next", no being locked in the bus in a rest stop in New Jersey for over a half an hour. I mean really, there's no WAY this idea could have been worse then taking the bus, unless the car exploded with us in it, and even then, at least we'd die quickly, as opposed to the slow painful torture of Greyhound.

(I'm still mad about it a year later. Can you tell?)

What with this, that, and the other thing, we only got to our hotel at 7:30 at night...a good four and a half hours after I was supposed to be at a photoshoot with Outer Power Inner Beauty and David Ng. Damnation. Now, I changed into my costume quickly, and was ready to go, when I noticed, one corner of our hotel room was completely soaked. So, we call the front desk to send someone up to check out our air conditioner, because I was pretty sure that's what was leaking. While we're waiting, Louis uses the bathroom. Guess what! Toilet stops up! So now we have to put another call in to the front desk.

I guess it's only to be expected that the first guy can't do anything for us, because the A/C needs a part to be completely replaced, and he can't get the part over the weekend. So for the rest of our stay, we have to avoid one corner of our room. And the toilet stopping up proved to be the first in a series of times that would happen...pretty much every morning and every night for all three days we were there.

Right. So, now we're first reaching the con center at 8:30 at night. The up side is, this means there is NO line for picking up our badges. The down side is, most of our friends have pooped out already and retired to their hotel rooms! I was disappointed that I wouldn't get to meet Patti and Steph yet (especially as it was Patti's birthday) but I ran into Usa and her friends right away (Josh, Mike, Jailbait, Rob, Kayla, Travis, Genna, and a few other people who's names I don't remember), so the night wasn't a total wash.

We took a quick tour of the artist's alley, because I knew Hime-chan had a table for the weekend, but somehow we couldn't find her. This could be because my left contact started acting up, and was really cloudy, so I couldn't see much of anything. At least we ran into Sheep! She looked completely adorable.

At some point, we went back to the hotel room, just because we were so frustrated. Lou took off his Jedite outfit, setting a new world record for least time spent in costume, and we stared at the con pamphlet and tried to decide what to do. Neither of us had ever been to a rave at an anime con (in fact, I've never been to a rave, ever), so we decided to check that out. We met up with Usa's friends Genna and...the other girl, who was really cute and tiny, but unfortunately I can't remember her name, and entered the rave.

Woo! That rave was RANK. I mean, maybe all raves are, I wouldn't know, and I only have our goth club to compare it to, but then again, maybe they're not, and the smell was just fanboy x A MILLION. It's hard to tell. I started dancing anyway, though, although I was already starting to worry that the humidity in the air from the heat the dancers were giving off would make my hair kink up.

One of the coolest experiences happened, though--I was sort of dancing by myself for a moment, as Lou ran off to find Kayla, and all of a sudden I hear, "Sailor Mars! You're so cool!" and as a magnet attracts paper clips, FWOOMP, suddenly I'm hemmed in on all sides by about four to six teeny boppers, all dancing...on...around me. They were adorable, and I only felt guilty (and slightly dirty) for about ten seconds, before deciding to just enjoy the feeling of flattery. :)

After checking out the rave, I made it my mission to find Avian Firefly, because if I had to be so rotten as to miss her shoot, I had to at least let her see how well the costume she made me turned out. I found her and was introduced to Aki-Reinii and Lady Terentia, who were both just as nice and cute as can be. And holy cow. Avi as Black Cat? I think Lou sported a permanent nosebleed, and I can't blame him. Look at the pictures if you don't believe me!

Anyway, by this point, it was late and we were hungry, so Lou and I left the con and headed for The Wharf Rat, the bar and grill that we had gone to last year. I bought him a souvenier glass to remind him of our favorite part of Otakon, and so that I'd finally remember the name of the damn place! Then back to the hotel for one more toilet annoyance, rest, and sleep.