SATURDAY

OHHHHH MAN! BEST FUCKIN' DAY OF MY LIFE!! No joke. Most rocktastic day in history.

First off, I slept in my own home away from the talkative lesbian couple who disturbed my sleep. I had a headache from all the dancing and...other things with that girl I mentioned. Sadly she was only there for that day to help out. *sigh*

Oh well, that just left me open to more opportunities, heh.

Ok, from the beginning...we got there MUCH later than I would've liked, about an hour and a half later. I was mad but I got over it pretty quick. I met up with my sister and her friend (let's call them Sis and Mute Girl respectively) at the door and gave them their badges for which I was showered with praise and loving, thankful embraces. I showed them around the con and basically guided them the whole day leaving the rest of my group to fend for themselves.

We went to the dealer's room where I introduced them to Orin. Orin is a great group of guys and girls who are their own band. NeoGuido I met last year (he's their spinner guy) and we hung out a lot chatting, he was solo then. I was gonna buy their CD (you know, support indie [independent] music and all that, plus they're not bad) but their burner was on the fritz, sorry their labeller. The thing that puts the labels on the disks. So you could buy the disk and it's be fine but it's also be blank-looking. Then I had INSPIRATION! I asked them if they'd mind signing all their names on the CD. They sold their CD's that way for the rest of the con. They need to quiet the vocals and clean up the quality but other than that they're pretty solid. But, you know, for indie it's pretty good stuff.

Also in the dealer's room: ITG. Stands for "In The Groove". Now it's just like DDR ok? EXCEPT! The songs are sooooo much more awesome. I used to go on about how cool DDR music was...now I know that stuff is only second best. Also, the mods are THE CRAZIEST! Tornado makes the arrows move in a circular motion, like a BIG circle (SO hard) and there was one mode where they jerk to the side on each beat so they come out of alignement. Last thing that separates it from DDR and Pump is the difficulty of the songs. DDR has like say 1000 songs (let's just say). Out of those 1000 they go up to level 9. Recently maybe 5 songs have been made for DDR that were level 10. This was to be the highest (10/9 you know?). But ITG takes ot to 13. Fucking THIRTEEN, man! ANd I can do one of the 13 songs. Oh yeah, look at me now. A bunch of us were playing ITG in the dealer's room. We did some freraky shit.
Such a good time.

After ITG came Guitar Hero (out this fall). It's like Frequency ot Amplitude but instead of a controller you have a little plastic guitar. With buttons where frets should be, a flippy switch thing for strumming, and a whammie bar! You have to hold the right "fret" and strum in time with the music (akin to DDR but more like Freq and Amp). WAS SO FUCKING AMAZING! TRULY ROCKTASTIC! I passed my first song which was "Take Me Out" (love that song) to great applause. No kidding, people were impressed. Was great.

Later that night in the game room, after Mute Girl and I tore up the dance pads (she can do HEAVY! And she's the best girl at DDR I know. Seriously, she's JUST behind me) we found...Taiko Drum Beat. They give you two sticks and a japanese-looking drum to beat on in time with the music. Mute Girl did great and they guy was impressed for it being her first time. But then I "full gauged" (as the guy put it) my first song. On hard mode. The guy couldn't believe it! Was a good feeling to know that I can just step up to things like that. Also, my first song was "Tubthumping". Hey, I like it and that's all that matters. Nyah!

The Otakon Masquerade is about 3 hrs. long and is where groups of costumed otaku put on skits. There was Cardcaptor Sakura trying to catch "The Matrix" card (yes. THAT matrix) and SOlid Snake had to infiltrate the con to steal Yaoi. But one of the FUNNIEST ones of all was the Ash and Pikachu duo.

Two girls. One dressed as Ash and one as Pikachu. Both very slutty; short skirts, stockings, just EVERYT piece of clothing reavealed. Anyway, they come out and say they'll answer two questions from the audience (presumably in a funny or clever way, right?). Well one says "Ok, so are there any questi-" and a guy in the very back stands up "I HAVE A QUESTION!!" Ash girl is liek "O-ok..." Guy screams "SHOW US YOUR TITS!!"

Whole fucking room (like 300-400 people) birst into laughter at once. Was a sight to behold, course I was laughing MY ass off too. As the laughter died down the girls recovered well and replied "Well, that's not really a question" "We can't do it on stage, maybe later" "now are there any more questions?" Guy like 20 ft. to the right of the first guy stands up and screams "HOW MUCH LATER?"

GOD that was amazing. I hope they won. I didn't stick around. I had a rave to go to. And I was prepared this time.

Oh how I raved that night. I still can't move my arms quite right. Like they're slower and stiffer now but that'll pass I'm sure. I was wearing a short-sleeved black button-up shirt with green flame designs and the black jeans I made (glow in the dark flames). I also wore a surgical mask I covered in electrical tape. I got a lot of compliments of my outfit. A LOT.

I got into a few "rave battles". All with girls actually. I'll take that as a good sign. My first was with this girl wearing a Naruto headband. We went at it and I won in the end but we were both laughing and having a great time. But the best one was definitly against the goth chick. There's always a circle cleared int he middle of the floor for solo dancers. Well I was standing on the edge watching (cause these guys are great at what they do) and this cute little goth girl comes into the circle doin her thing and she's dancing and raving all sexy-like (no other way to put it). And then she spins and stops. And points. At me.

I just look around and motion with my hands "Who, me?" but this girl did NOT fuck around. She grabbed me by the wrists and yanked me into the circle and pulled me in close. We danced then broke apart to rave a bit then got back together and we got a few cheers and chants but at the best part this asshole guy full of himself jumped in with these three light-balls on a string and we get like tossed out of the circle tryin to get out of his way. I don't know what happened but I lost sight of her and she was gone. I THINK I saw someone grab her hand and pull her into the crowd but it was hard to see. Oh well. There's always next year.

SUNDAY

It was sunday
But a black day

We broke down 35 miles outside of Baltimore. All because of me. I NEVER speak up when it's important and I HATE it! Let me explain:

We were on I-70 (I believe) and Ky says the "Check Gauges" light came on but the car JUST had an oil change and had plenty of gas too. So we pull over at a Food Lion off the highway to figure it all out. Ky is freaking out about her car because the fuel gauge and the oil gauge are just fine and nobody has any idea what's going on. And then there's me. I'm in the backseat thinking "Hmm, what about the temperature gauge?" But then I think "Noooooo. It'll be alright, that can't be it."

I DO THAT ALL THE FUCKING TIME! GOD DAMMIT!!

My brain just shuts down and refuses to think of it any more. All the fucking time. And I KNOW that it's important because my brain is trying to shut it out and it becomes this huge fight in my mind to keep thinking about it and not just let it go. In my whole life I've won (remembered and done something about it) maybe twice. In my life. I remember back to when I was having problems with my ex and we were on the phone (the day I decided I wanted her back) and she was gonna leave and she said "I'm gonna go talk to Marshal now!" REALLY chipper and all. And all I was thinking was "WHAT THE FUCK! WHO THE FUCK IS MARSHAL?!" But my brain passed it off as nothing and I just hung up without another word. And look what happened. Same goes for when I saw them holding hands. I wanted to pull her aside and ask her what the fuck she thought she was doing but I didn't because I simply forgot about it. RIGHT there in the time it takes to read a stop sign. And when she got up at lunch to see someone and she thought I should come too, that she thought what she had done would make me happy. I fucking KNEW something was wrong but I DID NOTHING!! Why?

Jesus. This isn't a new problem either. I've known about this for a long time now. But I can't seem to beat it most of the time, I've only ever won once or twice in my entire life. I'm not going on about my ex (I know John would see it that way) I just need to explain the depth of this problem and how...powerful it is.

Well we saw that the coolant was empty, there was no coolant for the engine. So we went to Food Lion and got some anti-freeze. Did you know anti-freeze is coolant? What the fuck? Well I guess if inflammable means flammable...

Anyway, I grabbed a gallon of drinking water and a styrofoam cup to mix the coolant with the water (1:1). And then we got back on the road. We got about 5 minutes down the highway and the car starts to slow down and Ky knows it's dying. So we pull to the side of the road. We checked the engine just to see if we could divine anything. No one had any thoughts. Then I gave it a look. I asked White about the radiator because it was just so...in my mind, you know? Like I KNEW that was the problem. But he said not to worry about it. And so what does my brain do? Yeah, fucking locks up and I can't give it another thought. Fuck. Well we call a bunch of people who don't pick up but eventually Ky's dad arrives and tells us that we put the coolant in the "coolant overflow" container.

Who is designing these cars?! The thing said "engine coolant" in big letters. The ACTUAL coolant thing was tiny and black, completly camoflauged. Fuck!! Anyway, he (Ky's dad) looks it all over and tells us we didn't put water or coolant into the radiator.

So we apparently exploded something called a...crap...ah, a "head gasket" that's right(?). Yep, that's what we blew. No idea what it's for but apparently le car dies without one. Le suck.

Oh well I didn't really have anything left to do at Otakon. And there's no rave on sunday. Though I do feel bad for Ky and White cause they didn't go to the dealer's room friday or saturday so they got no shopping done. I did call Mute Girl to ask her to buy Ky some hair chopsticks though. Also she would've given me a ride to Otakon if I had called earlier. But oh well, I probably wouldn't have left my crew on the side of the road like that anyway. We were there (side of the highway) for about 4 or 5 hours. No AC until Ky's dad got there about 2-3 hours in.

Oh well. Now I have february to look forward to. Katsucon cometh!!