I have a love/hate relationship with Otakon, the convention I work for. Sometimes I hate the amount of time she takes away from my other activities, how she places me in stressful situations with barely a word of encouragement. Other times, seeing the Con attendees reactions to what we do sends me back into her cruel arms. Meh, I’ve always said I was a masochist… one day, maybe I’ll believe myself.
Anyway, this is my pseudo con-report. I’m not gonna give ya a blow-by-blow description of how things went, but I will touch on some of the highlights of the weekend. As with all Guest Relations staff, my con-weekend began earlier in the week, but since I had to work my “normal” job, I didn’t get to do anything significant until Thursday night (aside from looking over schedules that morning). My brother was already having dinner with some industry reps when I called, so I checked in and met with him shortly afterwards. I didn’t stay long, because I had to pick some things up for some crazy Swedes and that required me to drive up to Pennsylvania to hit the only 24-hour Walmart in town. I came back late to find a few people up. After chilling, I went to sleep.
Got up and after a quick shower, I attended to the Friday rush. Not much to say here, except that I helped put out a few small fires and filled in when the Jo(h)ns were not around. I can’t think of anything truly significant until the evening when we started to organize the big Guest dinner at Brewer’s Art (OMG! the Garlic and Rosemary Fries are fucking fabulous!). Funny thing is, I didn’t get to go to the dinner. Puffy AmiYumi’s Panel was experiencing complications since they were stuck in traffic down from NYC. I stayed behind to make sure things ran well, and in the process, got to meet the girls. They were really cool to hang out with, though it was hectic since there was management everywhere, MTV2 came to run a small piece with them, the Panel was packed and shortly afterwards, they were gone. Like a puff of smoke. Somewhere in all the chaos, I got invited to see them perform in DC at the 9:30 Club as a VIP+1. That was cool. Anyway, Evelyn and I worked on finalizing press schedules until everyone came back from dinner. In a tired daze, walked to my room to find a party, so I joined in and had a few drinks with some weird people who make funny voices and write fucked up comics online. =D
Saturday rolled in, but I didn’t receive the wake-up call I was supposed to receive since the Hyatt goofed. I woke up barely in time to find that I had to go to work. Yes, fine readers of my randomness, I had to go to work, my real jobby-job, the one that pays (Otakon/Otakorp is totally non-profit). I had to be a manager for 9 hours (approve time, coach agents, put out fires, run useless reports), and then rolled in to Baltimore City again to find another small fire that needed to be squashed concerning a late-night panel. When all was said and done, I swung by the dance just in time to see Scott Henry spin his set, but I was more there to see if my roommate, the “rave” organizer, was alive. She was, so I went to my room to find… a party in my room. There was more drinking and stuff. My brother was beat, so I volunteered to open the Green Room. So…
I stayed up all night and opened the Green Room. Red Bull became my friend. I did get to chat with Monica Rial and Scott McNeil, which was cool. It allowed me to stay up. Anyway, I opened the Green Room, then got busy attending to the Guests. I won’t go over the minutiae, but I did end up “beating the con” with Scott since he had an autograph session that laster past the closing ours, but everyone went away with a signature. Dinner was held as the chic and trendy Hooters on the Harbor, then I attended the Dead Dog Party held by Otakon staff. This little party was… let me just say that what happens at Dead Dog, stays at Dead Dog. I did meet this cute girl named Hanako who was really cool to talk to, we talked till 4AM or so when we finally had to retire to our rooms.
Monday morning was chaotic. We had to check out of our rooms and then we drove to DC. Instead of catching up on much needed rest, I escorted the remaining Japanese Guests of Honor around the Capitol, had dinner at this really nice place called Kaz’s Sushi Bistro, a place I’d recommend to anyone wanting to dine on Japanese Cuisine in the DC area. Definitely first-choice. We then rushed to the Puffy AmiYumi show which was excellent. I was not sure what to expect since I have not had the pleasure of watching the show, but their live performance was good, and I liked how they interacted with the crowd. We then did some more walking (all of which was unnecessary, but I won’t go in to that) and finally got back to my brother’s place so I could crash. Except… I told my new-found friend that I’d drive her to BWI for her flight at 6AM.
After an all-too-short hour nap, I woke up, pulling Oki with me, and we drove to Springfield, VA. We picked her up and drove to Baltimore. She did a great job keeping me awake with our banter, so the trip was easy enough. I dropped her and Oki off so they could fly back to their respective homes, and I went to sleep after the short drive back to my place.
All in all, I think I had 10-12 hours of sleep between Friday and Tuesday. And then I had to work, gah!
Oh well, thus concludes the flow of consciousness that is my “con-report”. Now, I have to go home (I’m writing this at work) so I can get some sleep. I forgot I work the mid-shift, doh, so I’m again gonna deprive myself of sleep. Such is life.
-Tom
