The AX Report 1999

by Xoth, Master of Black Magic

Part One: What Had I Gotten Myself Into?

    What indeed?  Among other things, I got myself into a Sailor Moon marathon, a nine-hour drive through the desert, and the wrong line, all before the convention had even begun.  What do I mean by all that?  Keep reading, and you’ll see.  Here begins my wrap-up of the very first FFML/AX meeting, starting two days before the expo, on Bastille Day (July 14 for you silly, hamster-spawned non-French people).

Day -1: Entering Minivan Country
    I had a rather unusual travel plan.  On Wednesday, I was flying from my hometown of Peoria, Illinois, out to Salt Lake City, Utah.  Before you ask, “Uh, but isn’t the convention in Los Angeles?” let me say, “Yes, AX is in Los Angeles; now let me finish.”  I was going to be picked up at the airport by then-Utah resident Jaana and her friend Kat, and the three of us would then spend the next day driving across a couple states to get to the Anaheim Hilton and Towers, site of AX ’99.  I arrived at the Salt Lake City airport fine and dandy, if nervous about meeting an FFMLer face to face for the first time, and proceeded to wait in the baggage claim area.  Soon enough someone called out my name, and I turned to find two ladies peering curiously at me.  Of course it was them, and introductions were made all around.  Meeting two women (one of whom was taller than me) face to face didn’t exactly set me at ease—I have enough trouble conversing with guys—but their friendly and outgoing manner did, for which I was quietly grateful.

    Anyway, Jaana actually lived in Provo, an hour south of Salt Lake City.  We loaded my stuff into Jaana’s car, and she gave us a tour of what she called “minivan country,” pausing only for a brief dinner, and culminating in our arrival at her small basement apartment in Provo.  She spent the rest of the evening putting together cosplay costumes (mainly one of Eagle from Magic Knight Rayearth, as I recall), chatting in #ffml, and repeatedly attempting to burn songs for karaoke.  Meanwhile, Kat and I perused her collection of subtitled anime, including Sailor Moon and Yu Yu Hakusho (yeah, I knew of it before it was on Cartoon Network; I’m so hardcore).  Such helpful houseguests, weren’t we?  Well, I think Kat helped Jaana with her costumes somewhat, so only I was a total leech; and what the hell did I know about cosplay or CD burning, anyway?  Nothing.  Case dismissed.  At any rate, we were going to get an early start the next day, so Kat and I soon climbed into our sleeping bags, leaving Jaana to burn the midnight oil (not to mention several CD-Rs).

Day 0: Jackpot!
    We were out the door by 9am; or rather we had hoped to be out by 9.  I recall Jaana was forced to burn her music a couple more times after getting up, so we didn’t quite start as scheduled.  But the point is we left her cramped apartment well before noon and hit the road for Anaheim, CA, and Anime Expo!  However, we would soon run into problems, roadblocks, and other oddities along this particular road.  In fact, minutes into our road trip we narrowly avoided literally running into a roadblock: a lane on the highway was closed for construction, and that particular stretch was hidden from us by a convenient bend in the road.  Jaana barely missed flattening a few cones and a few construction workers, Grand Theft Auto style.  But I’m happy to report that there were no fatal auto accidents on our way to southern California.

Note: Just kidding, no vehicular homicide, manslaughter, injury, or threat thereof occurred.  While we did nearly hit the cones, no construction workers were present.  I still don’t know why there wasn’t any sort of warning, though.
    Of course, that surprise was just on our way out of Utah.  Our route took us through the desert Southwest, which as you can imagine was godawfully hot in the middle of summer.  Thus somewhere along the line, Jaana pulled her car over at a roadside stop to let the engine cool (as much as that was possible) and to allow us to stretch our legs.  I guess it worked, since the engine didn’t overheat.  Anyway, our route also took us right by Las Vegas, and we stopped at a gas station just outside the city.  When I went inside to use the bathroom, I discovered two strange things.  First off, apparently even gas stations have casinos in them; right after walking in the door I stumbled into a gaming area, complete with craps tables and slot machines.  Then after getting over my initial bemusement, I wandered to the men’s room and made my second odd discovery. (Warning: bathroom humor ahead)  As I stood at the urinal, I happened to look down at the plastic mat in the bowl; printed on it in small but legible type were the words: “Say No to Drugs.”  Now does anyone else think that putting an anti-drug slogan on something upon which people urinate is just a little bit fucked up?  Only in Vegas, I guess.

    At any rate, we avoided any major catastrophes, and after many hours on the road we made it to the LA metropolitan area. We knew we had arrived when we ran smack into a freeway traffic jam; how fun.  I suppose in hindsight it should’ve prepared us for what was to come, but of course hindsight is hindsight and not foresight, and as such is utterly worthless.  Anyways, we braved the traffic and soon made it to Anaheim and its famed Hilton and Towers Hotel, just blocks away from Disneyland (call and make your reservations TODAY!!!—err, sorry).  We checked in and made our way up to the room, and, lo and behold, everyone else and their grandmothers had made it before us! (except for Johnmog, who wasn’t coming until Saturday)  Ah well, at least we were able to get introductions out of the way fairly quickly.  Anyways, we fooled around a bit and then decided that we all needed dinner.  But where could we go?  Well, someone must have suggested a Japanese restaurant a couple blocks from the hotel, because that’s where we went.  And so before the convention even began we established a hallowed FFML/AX tradition: the meal at a Japanese restaurant.

    Not much to say about the meal other than the food and the company were both good, so let’s skip ahead to that evening, when we found out that we could get our badges before the con.  As we had all pre-regged, we all headed for the pre-reg line; if only that had been where we actually ended up.  We actually just went to the end of the first hugeass line we found, only to discover it was the regular registration line.  After this revelation we made our way to where the pre-reg line was.  It was an even huger-ass line (pardon the mangled grammar), filling an entire hallway and snaking back and forth a few times just for added length.  Needless to say, after an hour of just standing there waiting to move forward (not back), I began to wonder what damn good pre-regging actually did.  Eventually, the line did begin to move, and forward, no less—albeit at the pace of a crippled snail dragging a 16-wheeler behind it.  Finally, several days after the convention had ended, we made it to the front desk and got our badges.  Luckily, through the magic of the Convenient Plot Device™ the AX people had left behind a time-warp transporter so that those who had missed the convention could jump back to the day before it and thus actually attend.  Truly a tool to be used only for good and not evil.  At any rate, by the time we made it back to the day before, our weeklong wait had understandably left us cranky and irritable, so we promptly returned to our rooms and crashed.  Don’t ask what happened to our other selves still waiting in line, it’s not important or even interesting.

Note: Impossible, you say?  How could we have attended AX if we didn’t get our badges, you ask? I’m lying and blatantly exaggerating, you claim?  NO, REALLY?  The wait was only a few hours, and then we returned to our rooms and, well, crashed.  Some things I didn’t lie about.
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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.

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