EDIT: Holy shit, I forgot just how long winded I can be. x.x
Well...what can I really say about AWA this year? It was a mixed bag, to say the least. Not terribly impressed on the whole but I can't say it wasn't fun either.
Thursday, I left right after work and made it to the hotel by 8 that night. However, once I got to the hotel, my car got a flat which put a huge damper in my weekend. Though one of the staff, Matt, was nice enough to take me back out to my car and change the tire to my spare so I could travel to have the tire replaced the next morning. I met up with
and
, spending most of the evening with them....especially since we shared a hotel room together. lol While Wayah and I were taking stuff down to the dealers room so I could set up that night, we met Lauren Goodnight who helped us carry stuff. She was really awesome and I didn't even realize it was her. I also have a new nickname she's given me and I totally love her.
Friday, took the car to the Saturn dealership I passed on my way to Wal-mart, where I was told one of my other tires had a knot in it and needed to be careful. However, the mechanic was kind enough to fix the dome light that's been hanging by wires for the last year as well as put my passenger side window in the up position (which MY dealership here charged me $45 to do just to be told they couldn't do anything without replacing the motor which was $400) all for free. Tire wasn't cheap, but they rarely are. Sales in the AAM were abysmal. I made $250 in the DEALERS ROOM. It was pathetic. But of course this was not helped by the fact that there were 8 people there doing the same thing as me (at least the hat anyway) compared to the 2 from last year. The upside for Friday though was seeing an old friend, Debbie, that I've not really seen in over 3 years. It was great talking with her and through her, I met her friend Sean, who is just adorable. The two of them are in a bagpipe band back in Florida and I got to listen to/watch them perform on practice pipes in their room. It was quite amusing and made me miss Mardi Gras since the pipers always play in the parades. Also ran into
that night and talked with her a while. It was really good to see her as well. Saw several people from Miso as well.
Saturday, I faired much better, but no where to the extent I should have. But I made some money nonetheless. Got to see Debbie's group in their FMA cosplay and see the costume that nearly lost Vic Mignogna an eye last year. Sean was dressed as Al in full body armor and last year Vic ran up to him and just ran right into one of the shoulder spikes. After closing, I went upstairs, grabbed a slice of pizza from room service the previous night and hauled ass up a flight of stairs to Debbie and Sean's and joked with them while they got into their Inuyasha cosplay to walk around in. I came back after they came back to their room and hung out some more. It was good to hear Debbie tell me that I hadn't changed much. It's hard not seeing someone for so long and wondering if they aren't going to hang out with you because everyone may have changed too much and aren't like you remembered.
Sunday wasn't too much of a bust. I packed up early from the dealers room so that I could enjoy the last day a bit more. Said my goodbyes to Debbie and Sean and the Miso crew (Pocky scared the hell out of me when I was packing up my car). Decided to spend the last two hours of the day in the dealers room talking with a few people. Did manage to find my ONE major item to locate, which was the Hiruma plushie from the Eyeshield 21 set from Feb 2006, though the dealer didn't have it with him. Had to pay him $20 and he'd ship it to me. I'm crossing my fingers that he follows through. I want my little elf demon to squeeze. Other than that, I didn't buy anything more than a few doujinshi but thankfully Hendane has started stocking Eyeshield 21 doujinshi now and Brian said he'd try and locate a few circles for me as well. Brian also gave me a major confidence booster as he decided to spend most of the weekend being an obnoxious flirt towards me. My friend Weatherly from Aardvark Tees wasn't at AWA which was a bummer, but the company was selling nonetheless and I sent a large number of people their way since all my con shirts are now from AT.
After the con, I went out to dinner with
,
,
(who I actually passed by several time son Thursday and felt horrible for not asking her if she wanted to hang out because she spent the entire evening hanging out in the alley by herself waiting for her room mates to get in), and two others. We had Japanese and spent way too long there since our waitress seated us and never came back. After that, we shuffled over to one of the other's houses to hang out, and I went with
to the airport to drop off
. Came back, passed out, woke up a few hours later and left to find a place to change my tire to come back home.
All in all, the weekend was good, highly disappointed that I made a paltry amount of money, but it made up for it with making three new friends and getting to see old faces.
My shout outs to
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
. It was good to meet you all, see you all, and spend time with you all. And Fev, the pigeons were fucking awesome.
Stuffs!
Lazy
.
