Leaving Peoria just before 10am, I arrived in St. Louis less than an hour later. Unfortunately I had an e-ticket, so I needed to get my boarding pass at the gate. Then came the wonderful news that the flight was overbooked and that I would have to get my pass after those who had theirs had boarded. My ulcers weren’t too happy to hear that news. At any rate I ultimately did get my boarding pass and got on the plane, but the delays didn’t stop there. The crew needed three volunteers to give up their seat. Because I had planned to meet four of the others at LAX and was already delayed, I clutched my churning stomach and prayed someone else was unselfish enough to give up his or her seat. (The alternative was to take a 5pm flight to somewhere that was not LA and take a bus the rest of the way) Then some lady in front of me was insisting she needed an aisle seat, and the crew wanted to reseat people in order to put children next to their parents (which is why I insist that the damn airlines should sell ONLY as many tickets as there are SEATS on the damn AIRPLANE). Finally, about a half-hour after we were supposed to have taken off, we pulled away from the gate.

  So I arrived in LA late—and got a nice aerial view of what I assumed had to be the smog blanketing the area. Fortunately, I wasn’t too worried because Daran and Mabis were arriving about an hour after I was supposed to have. So instead of running over to Starbucks (our designated meeting spot) to let Pyxie and Pokey know that I had arrived, I stupidly ran down to the baggage claim area. My ulcers decided to have a bonfire in my stomach as I ran around the baggage carousel countless times. It kept stopping, and since I had not seen my bags yet, I was beginning to think they had lost my luggage or something. Fortunately I turned out to be wrong. No less than a half-hour after I stepped off the plane, I arrived at Starbucks, luggage in hand.
 

And I saw no one I recognized. Of course, this sent me into Xoth Cosmic Total Panic mode. Eventually I wore myself out and planted myself at the entrance to the terminal, in the hopes of catching Mabis or Daran. Many ulcers later, they did show up, and there was some rejoicing. I told them about the Starbucks situation, and Daran decided to check it out for himself. He came back empty handed, and we debated going to the hotel ourselves, guessing Pyxie and Pokey may have left without us. Luckily, Pokey had spotted Daran and followed him to us. After much rejoicing, he took us to where Pyxie was waiting. After even more rejoicing we were on a shuttle to Anaheim with some guy who had come home from New York and a Libertarian from Nebraska. (No joke) And before we knew it, we were there.

ZOTTO KOSUMIKO TOTARU PANIKU!!!

 

Locke was taking on all challengers...

Locke and Golbez had arrived before us, so we were able to go right up the room (after we had remembered which one it was: Bonita Tower, room 2576). It didn’t really hit me I was at Disneyland until I walked by a Coke machine on our floor and saw it was $2.50—an ill omen of things to come. At any rate, once introductions were out of the way and we got settled in, we watched anime and laughed at dancing Autobots (anyone who’s seen Transformers: The Movie will know what that means). After a while Mabis, Locke, Daran and I decided to bite the bullet and head to the registration line. After last year’s fiasco, we were expecting no less than a two hour wait. Amazingly, Mabis and I (the ones smart enough to prereg ;D) got through in less than an hour. Having done that, we ditched Locke and Daran and went back to catch the rest of the Transformers movie.  Locke and Daran got through pretty quickly too, though, and soon Johnmog showed up. We were still waiting for only Sky. Finally, we got too hungry and ordered pizza without him. After that, Sky still hadn’t shown up. So we went out to watch a Disney-produced show that involved fountains and pretty lights. Yay. Then we spent a while looking at expensive Disney merchandise and having Locke kick people’s asses at fighting games in the arcade. Eventually, some of us got bored watching him and headed back to the room for a more entertaining diversion: Dance Dance Revolution. Finally Sky showed up, and the party began. ^_^

  Of course, once Sky had arrived, the alcohol began flowing. Pokey made us all some exotic European concoction, which wasn’t bad as far as drinks goes. Then again, the drinks I’ve had include beer and straight whiskey, so it wasn’t too hard to top that. At any rate, it was fun watching drunk FFMLers attempt Dance Dance Revolution. Then Sky got out some—smokes. :D Unfortunately, intoxicated as I was, I had to try it. What resulted was an alcohol and pot-induced vision so utterly trippy, only a picture can sufficiently describe it. After I came to sometime the next day, I sketched out in my notebook some of the things I saw; a cleaned-up version of those visions appears here, below. (Click for the full size version)

Note: Okay, if you don’t know what’s wrong with that last paragraph, you’re the one on drugs. Yes, there was alcohol, and yes Pokey made us some Fluegel (or whatever it was called). But we recognized that there were those under 21 present and kept it strictly legal. ;) And Sky, as thoughtless as he can be sometimes, would never be dumb enough to bring a semi-legal substance to DISNEYLAND, of all places. ;) Everything was totally within bounds. I promise.

And there were no “drug-induced hallucinations.” I totally pulled that out of my ass. Incidentally, if anyone thinks they can get all the pop-culture references in the picture, you can e-mail me at “cosmic_chicken” at “excite” dot “com” and see how well you did.

  I am told that after I had passed out, the rest went to bed, then spent the next couple of hours discussing such enlightening topics as what percentage of the vote the Rock would get if he were running. Ah democracy, the ultimate popularity contest. But I digress. Oh yeah. And the people who weren't staying in the room left to stay in their rooms. We did have a lot of people in the room, but at no time were more than four people sleeping in the room. Really.

Note: >;D

Back to:

• THE INTRO!

• DAY 1!
• DAY 2!
• DAY 3!
• DAY 4 (& 5)!
• MISCELLANEOUS!

Disclaimer: This account contains a lot that could offend people. Sex. Porn. Drug use. Profanity. Violence. Anime. Crudely drawn pictures. Sentence fragments. A lot of non-white people. People celebrating a culture other than America’s. Disney-bashing aplenty. At any rate, if something offends you, stop reading. If your kids read something that offends you, tell them to go to another web site. If you’re really ticked off by it, then e-mail “cosmic_chicken” at “excite” dot “com”, and I’ll listen. Certain characters, events, etc. referred to and depicted in this account come from Japanese animated films and television series and are copyrighted by their respective companies. Whatever the SPJA and Anime Expo have copyrighted belongs to them.

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