Metrocon
June 2-4, 2006

Woke up Thursday and headed to school. I had an Econ test. I tried to remember if I had studied for it or not. Wasn't sure, but I had to take it anyway. First part killed me. I'll tell you the results later (hah! gonna keep you in suspense so you keep reading). Then had a review for the Psych test (ugh). Ran back to work and did a ton of mail orders, then went to the house and packed for the Killer Road Trip. By the time I finished, it was almost 2 a.m. so I tried to get a couple of hours of sleep. It didn't work. At least for the first 2 hours. Then, I fell asleep when I was supposed to wake up. Woke up at around 6 a.m. and knew I was in trouble. Drove over to Blackman to drop off my car and pick up William's Ford Focus.

Finally got to Tallahassee at around 10 a.m. EDT. Trent and William's new place looked nice. But we had to leave almost immediately, so we packed up Trent's Prius and sped on our way to....wait for it, wait for it......Metrocon, an anime convention in Tampa! Arrived at the hotel around 3:30 p.m. and then moseyed around for a bit. Steve from Anime Pavilion was there, along with Mike from Anime Palace and Henry from Yes Anime. Trent and William gave them our Anime South flyers, which they placed into their bags for free all weekend long just because they love us! After doing more nothing, I found the Anime Dating Game and walked in to see what was going on. I left the room with a wife, a bunch of new friends, and 2 other wives-in-waiting. You had to be there. Suffice to say, every time I saw one of my three "wives" that weekend, I got a huge glomp. Had some dinner at a nice Thai restaurant. Andrew finally arrived! Hadn't seen him since he went into the Navy last year. That was kind of neat to room with him. He brought his friend, O'Donnell. We all gave Andrew a hug. Went to a really awful party on Friday night, the details of which will be withheld to protect the guilty. No alcohol was consumed. But it probably should've been.

Got a few hours of sleep that night, but awoke to find that my snoring had kept my roommates awake for hours. I sheepishly ran to the convention center and tried to make myself scarce. Hung out with various people and talked with friends I hadn't seen in months. As night starting approaching, I decided to check the panel room again. It was the Anime Who's Line Is It Anyway? They had already had a screening for the participants the day before (which I had just missed), but I had talked to a random guy earlier in the day that said his girlfriend was running this panel and they were 1 guy short, so I showed up and got the last part. As a friend noted later, I carried my entire team the first hour, but then got brain cramps in the second hour. Ah well. Can't win 'em all. Met a couple of incredible artists there who just scribbled stuff during idle time and it was fantastic! Got them to sign their stuff and give me their emails. It was really awesome.

Went back to the hotel to steal dinner from the leftovers my roomies had when they ate lunch without me. I need a fork and a drink, so I headed down to the lobby of the lovely Marriott Waterfront where we were staying and plopped myself down at a table with 3 Bennigan's bags. I ordered a drink and asked for a fork. The bartender asked if I had enough for her. I told her I was really, really hungry. I got a laugh, a drink, and a fork. She got a green balloon animal that was for some reason in one of those bags (what were you doing, Andrew?). She liked the balloon more than the tip. Probably why I got the free refills.

I head back over to the convention center and pretty much do nothing again for a few hours (played some video games, talked to Steve, Mike, and Henry, etc.) until the event that Trent wanted to attend - Anime Speed Dating! It was supposed to start at 10 p.m., so I got there 5 minutes beforehand to see if I could find him. Instead, I found a random guy I met earlier in the day who told me they were about to cancel it because the organizers who were supposed to run it decided they'd rather hang in another part of Tampa. I looked behind me and noticed almost 300 people in the room - the most we'd ever seen for a panel at this con. I told him, "You do realize we're going to have a small riot on our hands once you announce this?" I told him how he could arrange the chairs around so they were facing each other and explained the timing of it all. He didn't look convinced. I started unstacking chairs and got a few people from the audience to help us. Unfortunately, we didn't have paper, writing utensils, or anything of that nature. We were going to have it wing it. It took about 10 minutes, but we eventually had 60 people seated for 2 minute "dates". We didn't even have a clock, so I had to borrow someone's watch that had a digital timer and was yelling out "change!" every 2 minutes. I lost my voice before the hour was up. Since we had so many people still wanting to do this event, we even held a second round of 40 people for 3 minute dates (a little more reasonable), which also took about another hour. I didn't even get to participate.

Dragged myself out at almost 1 a.m. to the convention hall, where it was dying up. Met Duo (ha ha) and ended up closing the place. Security kicked us out twice! LOL

Went back to my hotel room as everyone was headed to bed at around 2 a.m. Everyone else wanted a good night's sleep so I decided to take a walk. I probably should've stopped after I noticed the crunching sound beneath my shoes were crack vials, but I was bored. When I finally hailed a cab at around 7 a.m., the cabbie looked at me in utter amazement. "You're lucky you stopped where you did - once you go under that bridge, you're in the bad part of town."

"What? I just walked through there from the other side for about 4 hours."

Took about 10 miles to get back to the convention center. The security guard told me it hadn't opened yet, so I walked across the street to the hotel and went to all-you-could breakfast bar. Had a nice talk with the cook about how I used to work for Marriott (Roy Rogers). He was one of the few people who knew the story about how it got re-sold twice and finally landed with McDonald's! Went back upstairs, where everyone was still asleep and tried to take a nap. They woke me up less than 2 hours later. I don't think I got a single REM cycle, which of course meant I didn't snore. I think. At least no one complained about it when they got up. Crammed everything into the car, kissed Andrew goodbye (just kidding; had to say it - he's in the Navy nuclear program; you know the joke about nuclear submarines - 64 men go down, 32 couples come up), and headed back to Tallahassee. Ended up helping put William's computer desk together, which he was having serious issues with - I had to show him that you're really not supposed to go by the instructions. Fell asleep quickly on the couch and actually felt half decent in the morning.

Trent and I awoke at the same time, so we decided to go hunt a computer desk for him now. Got back a few hours later (William had left a note that he had gone to get the Internet - I wondered how he was going to carry the entire World Wide Web by himself). As we were about to start putting the desk together, William came back. I offered to help him put his network together (configuring and securing his wireless router and installing the cable modem) while they worked on the desk. I finished first and talked them into going out to eat and celebrating Trent's 21st birthday! Then we went to Sam's so they could load up on groceries. We finally got back and it took them forever putting that desk together. When I went to see what was taking so long, they had once again made the classic mistake of actually reading the directions. I told them to look at the top shelf. They saw no problem with it being at a 30 degree downward angle. I sighed and demonstrated the art of looking at the picture on the outside of the box and making the desk look like it, the instructions notwithstanding! Had to configure Trent's wireless card to sync with the router's security settings and reduced the speed to 5.5 Mbps so the connection would be steady (who actually keeps it at 54 Mbps, anyway? it's a pipe dream to think you can get that speed, especially when the download limit on the cable modem is 6 Mbps).

The fun then really started. We all packed into the Focus and attempted to do the Tennessee Waltz. For those of you who aren't familiar with FSU, "[t]hat's where students hit all the bars along Tennessee Street near campus for free drinks on their 21st birthdays." We almost got to the last bar, when Trent said he knew his limit. That became his drunken rallying cry as the night continued. I decided I was hungry, so I talked everyone into going to McDonald's. After a burger, Trent said he wanted to do that last bar. I told him no. Then William distracted me. He decided to call Auna at around midnight. She was asleep, of course. But not for long. I tried to take the phone away from him, but William is funny when he's drunk. In fact, I think he ended up drinking more than Trent did that night. Trent then proclaimed he knew his limit, and his limit had just been extended. He hit the last bar. And was thoroughly smashed. I quickly stuck everyone into the car as a nearby rent-a-cop was giving us the dirty eye. One of these days, I'm going to get drunk just to see what it feels like. Okay, maybe even just 1 beer. When I'm 80, maybe. (insert your bad old joke here: "Oh, wait - isn't that next year for you?) They fell asleep once they got home. I think. I didn't stay up to find out.

So, it's now Tuesday? Woke up at around 8. William needed me to drive the pick-up truck they used to move to Tallahassee driven back to his father's house. So here's an old Korean guy driving a redneck beat-up white full size pickup truck down Interstate 10. I wished I could have taken a picture of myself for posterity. Got back to Crestview at 11 a.m. CDT and did some quick mail orders. Had a ton of backlog. Steve left me a message saying he and Henry were headed to Harrah's in New Orleans and I was welcome to join them - they had to leave Wednesday morning, but I could use the room until Thursday morning, if I wanted to go gambling with them. Hmm....tempting. Had to go to class first. Didn't have time to go back to William's house to trade off the truck for the Echo, so I called Danny and told him I was kidnapping his truck to Pensacola. He chuckled and said to return it whenever. I got there to see that I got a 79 on the Econ test. Better than I thought I had done. Missing that first hour the first day of class killed me. Half of what I got wrong came from there. I despise these short summer classes. Oh, wait. There's a Psych test after this class. Did I study for that? I think I actually did. But that was last week. Had to take it. Finished early and started driving to Danny's house. There's a tickle in my throat, so I know hitting all those smoky bars, along with my sleep deprivation and bad eating habits had finally caught up with me. So much for New Orleans. Still hadn't eaten anything all day, so when I finally got to Danny's house and Cindy offered me dinner, I didn't refuse like I usually do. I think I ate all of their leftover chicken, pork, corn on the cob, and macaroni and cheese. Told Danny about his son's drunken adventure as we laughed it up. Cindy looked mortified to find out that her son drank! Well, she knew but I don't think she had actually heard details before. Rolled out of Blackman/Baker with the Echo after about an hour. Really nice folks. Went to sleep with the help of some Nyquil-wannabe stuff.

Got up around 9:30 and went to D&W Cafe to meet Andrew for breakfast. Had a huge backlog of Internet orders I had to get out, so I went to the store afterwards. Andrew had to wake up O'Donnell, so he went off for a while. They came back and played Naruto 4 for a while. Then I made them go to the post office for me. I was beginning to feel really bad. When they got back, I felt just a little better and we decided to eat lunch. Drove to Fort Walton to Yong's Korean restaurant. O'Donnell ordered the kimchee chigae (stew), which I warned him not to do. Before it was over, he was eating my delicous, yet totally non-spicy kalbi (spare ribs) while I ate his kimchee chigae. Went to see Over The Hedge, which was kids fare, but enjoyable. They wanted to take some pictures of the beach, so they bought some disposable cameras and they ended up doing the tourist thing before leaving Destin. By this time, I felt like death, but I still had to do my Econ homework. Ugh. At least I found out I got a 90 on my Psych test. Not bad.

Woke up and got to class almost on time. Not only did I feel like death, but death seemed like a good option at this point. Coughed and sneezed my way through 2 classes. Thank goodness I brought tissues and cough suppressant. And sat by myself. After I got back home, Auna called me back from Houston (fun road trip for her) and I tried to explain to her that it wasn't my fault that William had called her in the middle of the night. She actually was happy because she'd never seen or heard her brother drunk before! And there you have it in a nutshell. My life for the past week. Only regret is having been too sick to do the New Orleans trip.

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