AX09 report

beware: loooong post.
DAY 0 [wed]
i leave work early and wait for george to pick me up so we can get our badges. while i'm waiting i get a text from kelly asking if she could get a ride too. she was supposed to go with cookie and brian but apparently stuff and traffic happened and she still hadn't left yet. the three of us get to the con center, pay 12 freaking dollars for parking and wait in a steadily moving line. kelly had gone off to find the press line. as we got in line, we hear "brandi!! george!!" and one row of ppl ahead of us was cookie, brian, and peter. timing. so we got our badges, saw a couple ppl we knew volunteering and then i started the chain of frustrating phone calls back and forth to kelly regarding event ticket pickup. she had taken the bus to go to the westin because soy told her his roommate was waiting to give her the roomkey [she was staying with them that night]. apparently they weren't staying at the westin and she had to walk a block or so to the biltmore. and guess who was waiting for her? shinji. that booger who said he wasn't coming was here. so i told her to find a way back to the con center and fast because we were in line for the main event tickets and we needed her there to pick it up. we talked to some ppl we knew behind us in line and finally got our tickets after 8pm. we dropped off shinji, kelly, and her luggage at the biltmore then george dropped me off.

DAY 1 [thur]
george picks me up after 11am and after picking up alberto, we took a detour to LAX since my dad's phone died and he needed the charger. with decent traffic we made it to the hotel after picking up kelly from the biltmore and george parked at the marriott while i waited to check in. the guy at the desk wasn't unfriendly, just, not talkative. and i don't mean small talk/chitchat. just, he really only said what he absolutely had to. he didn't even tell me my room number! he just handed me my keys and that was it. booger. we went to our room to find one king bed [and an extremely oddly-shaped room. i still want to talk to the designer]. after thinking about it, i remembered that the guy didn't say much and didn't even confirm what kind of room i reserved. so i call the front desk and being transferred twice, finally got someone with answers and they switched my room. we waited for the room key, went up two floors to room 1948 [it sounds like a year! xD] and waited for some people to show up. time for the concert! the four of us get to the con center via random shuttle busses and get to our seats. we were the fourth row and center on mana's side. it was a really cool concert. kelly was giddy as hell and i think george and alberto enjoyed it. afterwards, we were hungry so kelly left to hang out with katch and raven and the three of us went to johnny rockets with mike. then we went back to the hotel room, changed and decided to check out the dance. right before we went in, i saw cha! we were all excited and jumping and hugging and sqealing. i'm sure we were annoying to some ppl around us xD. then kelly saw raven and went out with them for a break. i told george raven went to smoke and he wanted to go. so 2 seconds in the dance, then outside [where he didn't even smoke]. we went back inside to the dance to find that they had just kicked everyone out to do the 18+ check thing and now there was a LONG ridiculous line. that sucked. so we just went back to the room, showered and got ready to sleep. me, george, mike, and alberto went to sleep right away so we wouldn't have to deal with the other 4 ppl who were out when they got back.
DAY 2 [fri]
thanks to the stupid forum meet&greet, we all had to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn. ugh. i wore my lion saber outfit with some clothes underneath for easy changing later. the M&G was alright i guess. we were an hour late and there still wasn't that many people. the room we got was freaking HUGE. only about 1/3 of it was full. maybe not even that...maybe around 1/4. there were a lot of chairs empty. we got there in time for the awards. i won forum bishoujo, yay. then it was the cosplay walk-off. that was alright i guess. andrew tried getting everyone to sing "be a man" but no one did and he was the only one. it was kinda funny. then andrew said something and fuji got a gift for going away to japan and whatnot. that was that. wasn't all that great...then again, we did miss the games. which i wouldn't have played anyway. after that we went to the exhibit hall to buy something to get signed by mana later. me and kelly found the mana merchandise booth right away and each got a poster. we went to LP1 but there was going to be a panel before mana so i changed into my loli-ish outfit and we decided to eat. i ran into cha along the way to the food court and she seemed like she was going somewhere too. cathy met up with us during lunch but left to go to workshop or something while we went to the panel. mana, k, and sugiya were there. i was kind of surprised the vocalist, seth, wasn't there. the whole thing was a Q&A session and they were smart this time by screening the questions first before some idiot fangirl could ask them to marry her. they told us where the signing was and most everyone got their ticket and rushed out. it was on the 2nd floor, waaaay on the other side of the freaking con center. we were about #161 in line after they gave us placeholder tickets. they moved our line to two different rooms and a bit after 4pm, we finally got our autographs. we went to the exhibit hall and shortly after, kelly left with shinji to watch an evangelion movie. i went looking for george in the exhibit hall and then got hit on T_T stupid boys. ew. we went back to the hotel, got mike since he wanted to come along, and then went to the marriott to pick up the car. thanks to my stupidity of just assuming things, i had to pay $60 to get the car. they had upped their summer prices to $30 from their $16.50 from last year. and since we were not at the marriott, i had to pay for just taking the car out. that got me extremely upset at myself since i didn't read anything or even think about price changing. so feeling shitty, we went to my house to pick up some things i forgot and on the way back we got wingstop. back to the hotel, we parked at the westin which was $24. i don't think we did much that night. haha i can't really remember. i think i just wanted to sleep, especially since we had the wedding the next day.
DAY 3 [sat]
me and george were going to his cousin's wedding in long beach. it was a catholic mass/wedding in a church. george's brother and his family were there too. it was kinda boring. i couldn't really see them the whole time and half of it was in spanish because of the bride's family. george said i was acting just like one of the kids, fidgeting and playing with things. we skipped the reception and went back to the con to meet everyone at denny's. i was feeling a little blah because i kind of wanted to go to the exhibit hall to look around but everyone else wanted to do denny's. on the walk back from denny's we stopped at famima and got some sushi and udon for dinner [we didn't eat at denny's since we had a late lunch before the wedding]. back in the room, me, george, and jun watched the end half of disney's tarzan then happy feet. it was the last night so i wanted to go do something. cathy came to the room and we all got ready to go to the dance. the long ridiculous line kept moving so i guess it wasn't that bad. the dance room's floor was actually shaking. if you stood still, the floor moved under you. it was cool and scary at the same time. george didn't stay long and took my key to go back to the room [or so i thought]. the dance was pretty cool. it was fun watching raven excite everyone and the dj's weren't that bad. 4-5 guys asked me to dance...eh. then the stage dancer ppl/raven started throwing out these colorful lights. our group all wanted one so we flocked to their little platform thing like baby birds wanting food. i got a white one from the other guy passing them out so i tried getting one from raven but he stopped. those things are pretty cool, really bright too. the last song i danced to was a mix of "ready steady go" by l'arc en ciel. it was so fun, our little circle was singing to it. i was getting tired and sweaty so after getting water outside, i went back to the room. right when i get there, mike calls me saying george wasn't in the room, which i clearly saw. he was apparently down in the dance, sitting on the side, watching us the whole dang time. creeper. so i showered and changed and thought i was going to sleep when jun and kelly said they were going to the marriott to check out a room party. i've never seen a room party so i went with them. jeremy and mike came along too. we tried going to 801 [nick, gary, andrew's party] first but only got halfway down the hall when someone told us to turn around since security might be watching. we went to another one that was really chill. honestly, my first thought when i walked in was "is everyone stoned??" because people were on the floor, talking, dim lighting, chill music. not really what i expected. we went back down to the lobby and just hung out for a bit and saw maki. she said we could try 801 again since some people had been leaving. we did and saw a group with gary by the elevators. down the hall we saw masa and he was like "oh you guys are cool." he told their bouncer friend we were alright and we got in, yay. now that room was what i expected from a room party. ppl standing, loud music, and they even had a dj! not just some stereo. matt [tweek's dj friend] was doing his thing in the back corner part of the room. andrew was shamelessly flirting with a girl that looked like she was only half listening. cyber looked tipsy, laurence was probably drunk, and some girl was talking about making out with jun. we left soon and went back to the room. george, alberto, and cookie were still up talking about god knows what, so i just tried to sleep since we had to check out by 12 the next day.
DAY 4 [sun]
everyone's getting ready and packing and i check the bill through the tv. over $650. that was $100 more than i was anticipating. i look closely and peter had put his car in the garage under my name. i had enough to pay for it, but it would've been nice to know he did that. i was cutting it close so i just checked out through the tv and got the receipt from the front desk later. me and kelly wanted to get one last thing from the exhibit hall so we all went there. we were at this one booth for a good 20, maybe 30 minutes deciding what bag to buy. they were all so cute with little kitty patches sewn on to them. i ended up getting the same as cathy's but in a different color. we decided to continue the party at kelly's house so after buying last minute trading cards for george, we got the car, picked up kelly and alberto from the con center and left ax. at kelly's house, we chilled and while george and alberto went to pick up mike, cathy, benji, and steven from the train station, we ordered pizza. about 12 people were there and we watched big bang theory, chi's sweet home, and about 3 ppl were watching mr. brain. cathy and some ppl went to buy pies at polly's pies [previously baker's square]. i was going to eat some, but i was getting tired of ppl and just didn't care anymore. me, george, and alberto left around 10 or so, dropped alberto off and then i got home.
ax this year was good. i felt like i didn't do much, but i did what i wanted which was the concert, panel, signing, and some exhibit hall. i kind of wanted to go to the dance more than one night since it was pretty fun. but oh well. whether or not we stay at the westin next year is debatable. i really didn't understand the shape and layout of the rooms but if parking is going to be $30 at the marriott, screw that.