The AX Report 2001

by Xoth, Master of Black Magic

Day 1: So Many Mistakes...

    Let me start by saying that I had to get up at 4am in the morning.  Yes, 4am.  To be at the Peoria airport by 5 to catch a 6am flight to be in St. Louis by 7.  Isn’t it great how my life breaks down into these neat one-hour intervals?  Well, sorta.  Anyway, I arrived in the Gateway City well before my 8:40 flight to LAX, so I fooled around a bit.  Then when it was time to board, there were a number of empty seats!  I must say, after the overbooking and delays that went on last year on this leg of my journey, this was a very pleasant surprise.  Little did I know that that was about the best my day was going to get...
 

.. Yeah, I wish this was  my flight....

I arrived in LA on time and even had enough time to pick up my bags and hurry from Terminal 3 to Terminal 7 to meet Mabis’ flight.  Of course, my bags were very heavy (either I overpacked, or I’m a weak, weak little man) and slowed my progress somewhat, but hey, I had time.  Then I discovered Mabis’ flight from Tucson was delayed.  This was a problem, since her flight was originally coming in before Daran’s.  I had emailed them with plans to meet at Daran’s terminal if all else failed but had no way of knowing if she had received it in time.  Still, I figured that I could probably pick up Daran and get back to Terminal 7 before Mabis arrived.  And I still had a little time to get to Terminal 5 where (I thought) Daran was arriving.  My bags were beginning to murder my arms, so I gave in and got one of those $2 baggage carts.  So I got to Terminal 5 and parked myself in the baggage claim.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any info on American Airline flights (especially the one which Daran was taking).  Then I discovered I had lost the slip of paper with his flight number on it.  I frantically hurried back Terminal 7, retracing my steps, to no avail.  Now feeling very stupid, I rushed back to 5, hoping to catch Daran at the main entrance of the terminal.  There I waited for some time before I realized that Daran might not come out this way to pick up his bags.  So I rushed back down to the baggage claim, trying to recall the flight number.  But there I discovered there were no American carousels, only Delta ones.  Refusing to take that hint, I went back up to the terminal entrance, hoping that Daran would come that way and that Mabis’ flight had not arrived while I was running around Terminal 5.  As I was sitting by the information desk, cursing my luck, somebody asked what airlines were using this terminal.  When I didn’t hear the woman at the desk say “American,” a horrible thought dawned on me.  I went and asked her if American did use Terminal 5, and she said it did—for international flights.  American’s domestic flights arrived at Terminal 4.

    By now I felt, to put it mildly, like a total fucking MORON.  I then ran flat out to Terminal 4, hoping that perhaps Daran was still waiting for his bags.  Running around the baggage claim, I saw no one who resembled Daran.  So I spent a good while running around, hoping Daran was still arriving.  But he never showed up.  I felt like killing myself, but instead I dragged myself back to Terminal 7 to wait for Mabis (provided her flight hadn’t already arrived).  The good news (if it could be called that) was that her flight was not arriving for another hour.  The bad news was that I had to abandon my luggage cart when I went through the security check; after running back and forth between terminals, I was in no shape to lug three heavy bags by myself.  But that's exactly what I did, all the way to the gate Mabis’ flight was arriving at, practically at the far end of the terminal.  Then, after collapsing against the nearest pillar, I got the most welcome surprise all day: Daran showed up.

    Apparently, he had been running around looking for me, except I accidentally hadn't bothered to tell him which terminal I would arrive at.  Well, after exchanging horror stories, we settled down to wait for Mabis.  And soon enough, she arrived with her own horror stories about waiting in the airplane on the runway in Tucson for two hours.  But the important thing was that we were alive and together.  So we went down to pick up Mabis’ bags and call Pyxie, whom we hoped had already arrived at the hotel.  Turned out she was still stuck in traffic or something, but she was okay and on her way.  So now we had to find transportation to Long Beach.  And luckily we found it.  We packed into a shuttle van and, after circling the airport a couple times to pick up other people and then dropping those people off, we arrived at the Hyatt Long Beach.  Mistakes were made (the overwhelming majority my own), but we made it nonetheless.

    And once in the hotel, we were met by the familiar sight of cosplayers and other otaku milling about.  Then even more familiar sights: Pyxie, with her Mooglechick cosplay group, and Pokey, taking pictures.  Also, Locke, who introduced us to Bahamut X and Tenshi, and Golbez, in line at the front desk.  So that’s how, after running around the airport for a couple hours trying to find each other, we ended up meeting almost everyone else within a few minutes of arriving.  Of course, we were beat from our hijinks at LAX, so we wanted to head up to the room.  Locke took us up, where we met Chibi Arty, a non-list member and veteran AXer who was shacking up with us for the weekend.  Arty was able to get our room for us on Wednesday, while most of us were off celebrating the 4th of July, but he couldn’t get two adjoining rooms, the other for Golbez and his friends.  He did bring a desktop computer, much to my surprise.  He said he would bring a computer, but I was expecting a laptop or something small like that.  But a desktop computer! 8O  And he had quite a collection of stuff on it too.  The first things we watched on his computer were“naked lesbian street luge” and a jive-talking Japanese family (to avoid the risk of offending African-Americans, that’s all I’ll say about that).  Soon, however, it was discovered that most of the group still had to pick up their badges.  So we all headed down to con registration, in the galaxy far, far away known as the Westin Hotel.

Note: Honestly, it wasn’t that far.  Still, it’s about time I exaggerated something.  If anything, I actually UNDERstated how utterly idiotic I felt while running around LAX trying to find Daran and Mabis.

And as for “naked lesbian street luge,” just watch the end of the Utena movie.  ^_^

    Wait....  Scratch that last one.

    Anyways, after all of our group had regged, we all couldn’t agree on what to do next.  Daran, Mabis, Bahamut and Tenshi, thinking with their overburdened (heh) wallets, wanted to go to the dealers’ room and see what merchandise they could snag in the next hour or so before it closed.  The rest of us, thinking with our empty stomachs, wanted to look for cheap food.  So while they headed off to blow dough on non-edible objects, Pyxie, Pokey, Locke, Arty, and I piled into Arty’s car and headed to Carl’s Jr. (a.k.a. Hardee’s to Midwesterners)  There I found something that I hadn’t managed to find all last year: a dinner for under $5. ^_^  Yes, I’m painfully chea—err, I mean highly budget-conscious.  Anyhow, we pigged out on burgers and burritos (apparently they also sell Mexican fast food at southern California Carl’s Jrs.) and then went across the street to a McDonald’s to pick up a bunch of burgers for the others.  Hey, we may not be efficient, but at least we’re thoughtful.

    Once we had finished dinner, it was already time to head back to watch the karaoke competition.  Golbez and his friends—better known as Otaku Generation, the premiere anime boyband of the new millennium—were performing and had extracted a promise from us to watch them compete.  So after meeting up with the others, off we went to the convention center.  And they did an excellent job, if I (and the judges) do say so myself.  Jon, the lead guy, sang while the others (including Golbez) danced, but choreography counts for something, right?  If nothing else, they knew how to work the crowd like no one else in the competition (a point the next day’s performances reinforced ;D).  And at any rate, their practice and preparation paid off; they made it to the Friday night semifinals.
 

So, how could we possibly follow up watching a bunch of enthusiastic performers singing and dancing their hearts out?  Why, watching the apocalyptic angst and ultraviolence of X, the movie, of course!  But first, we had to find our way to the Terrace Theater of the convention center.  So Mabis, Daran, Bahamut, Tenshi and I left the room and put our 1337 navigational skillz to the test.  Well, finding the convention center wasn’t hard, since we’d just been there for karaoke.  And, according to the map provided by the AX people, the exhibit hall was right across from the theater.  Simple, right?  Not exactly.  We first headed back the way to karaoke.  However, this way would take us aaallll the way around the west side of the convention center, back along the route we took to the distant Westin Hotel.  After awhile of walking, we decided there had to be a shorter way to get to the theater.  We backtracked and went down the back path to the dealers’ room.  But the doors to the foyer area were locked.  As it turned out, we were better off heading around.  Well, by the time we reached this conclusion, the movie was already well underway; after batting around ideas such as smashing the doors down or screaming for help in the hopes of attracting alarmed security guards, we gave up and trudged back to the room.

Locked out of X....

    To console ourselves, we attempted to set up my VCR and Bahamut’s Playstation 2 for a late night of gaming and anime.  No such luck, however.  The Hyatt had prepared well for our coming; they had hooked black boxes to their rooms’ televisions.  These boxes not only made the television automatically skip to the hotel’s information channel each time it was turned on but also made it impossible to hook up any external electronic device.  And finally, they came with this warning: “Attempting to remove, disable or otherwise tamper with this box will result in explosion and possible jail time or a fine of up to $25,000.”  Well, we weren’t about to give up without a fight, but despite the best efforts of our resident electronics expert (Arty) and our resident explosives expert (Mabis), the box held.  The clincher was when we heard a loud boom and, five minutes later, we heard sirens just outside the hotel.

Note: No, the box was not a high powered explosive device.  We did conclude that it would have to be removed before we could hook anything up to it.  But there was no way we could do so without irreparable damage to the hotel’s property.  So we left it.  Lord knows some of us were paying enough for the room as it was—and that was before we knew about all the hidden charges.

Back to:

[ Intro ]

Now onward to:

[ Day 2 ]        [ Day 3 ]        [ Day 4+ ]        [ Miscellaneous ]

Disclaimer: This account contains a lot that could offend people.  Sexual content.  Drug use.  Profanity.  Violence.  Celebrations of Japanese culture.  Non-white people.  Crudely drawn pictures.  Sentence fragments.  If anything in this account offends you, find another web page. If your kid reads something that offends you, tell them to find another web page.  If you’re really ticked off by it, then e-mail “cosmic_chicken” at “excite” dot “com” so I can ignore you.  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.

The pages were designed in Netscape Composer at 832 x 624 resolution.