Eeeeh??? How long has it been since I did anything here? Seriously... The only routine I have on DA on a daily basis nowadays is checking out if I got any new messages, delete my +fave notifications (not that I don't like getting them, but they clutter my inbox xD), and then move on.

My interest in this place has dwindled, to be frank. I'm currently mostly doing work behind the scenes, haha.
I'm finally doing well at school, which has been a main focus of me since my last journal entry. Heck, I've even got the hang of somewhat proper 3D modeling and texturing, and even programming-wise I'm not doing too bad. Still, my main focus is the whole 'concept/2D artist' thing! At first it seemed like I was almost heading down the same road as last year, but I managed to change directions in time and get some serious shit done. School finally saw my efforts and sent me a letter that my school results so far are sufficient to pass this year. Not there yet though, 6 weeks of work left!

Furthermore, doing okay. Aside from a few minor things that are bugging me, I've nothing to complain about!

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Animecon Report
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Time flies fast when you're having fun. Why is that? Time should go really slowly if you're having fun. I guess that's what they mean by 'living in the moment'.

Anyhoo!

Friday
Got up early and left the house early. The route to Animecon is one hell of a long trip for me, 2 and a half hours if I'm lucky. X_X
When I got there, the line wasn't too long. I got in pretty quickly. Then I went to check in at the hotel, and as I had sort of expected, trouble was brewing. I met up with my roommate first. He told his friends he'd got a room on the 5th floor. I was like 'wait, are you still my roommate?'. But I didn't pay much attention and checked in.
I got the keys to a room on the second floor. I was confused at first, but whatever, I had a room to sleep in. Then's when I noticed something was off. There was somebody at the hotel with the same last name, and at first, it seemed the hotel accidentally switched rooms. When I went back to them to tell them that, the girl with the same last name as mine was actually standing behind me. Then the hotel discovered that my roommate had already checked in for us! I got the right card key for my room this time and everything was settled. (Thank God).

I went to my room, changed into my Duke Pantarei cosplay, and went to go and find my friends. I don't remember doing much else for the rest of the day. It was pretty warm in that costume, so just before I went to have dinner I decided to switch into my Gintoki Sakata cosplay instead. The dinner was nice. I must remember next time that spicy Japanese curry is indeed, spicy.|D

I raided the dealer room once it was open. I got myself the Art of Okami, the artbook of the game Okami. It's pretty cool. I love the style of the game! I was surprised there was an artbook of it. It's really cool. Another fine artbook for my collection!

Pretty late in the evening I went to the game room and started playing real life Mario Kart (read: remote controlled karts with Luigi and Bowser on a table). That was cool. |D I also played New Super Mario Bros. together with a few peeps including ~Kinlyu's boyfriend. I eventually took control of Mario and he was playing as Luigi (while cosplaying as Luigi, HECK YEAH!). I accidentally used him as a jumping platform in one of the levels. Right after that, he died because he landed on a Piranha Plant that was just coming out of a warp pipe. I guess it really hurts to be in your brother's shadow. XDD

I went back to my room afterward, trying to catch some sleep. I was reading some One Piece (as usual) before sleeping. My roommate had decided to get some shut-eye too, but we watched some Family Guy on TV. I think it was around 3 when I finally slept.

Saturday
I woke up at 8 and couldn't sleep afterwards, so I got out of bed. I decided that before changing into Madame Red to have breakfast first and try to find a supermarket to stock up on food for the midday/evening. But first, I went to the game room to play Portal 2. GLaDOS is as funny as ever. <3 I really liked Wheatley too. I played through the first two chapters I think, after that I stopped to get breakfast.

DAT BREAKFAST. Seriously. A-ma-zing. Bacon as far as the eye could see. Okay, that's exaggerated. But I had half a plate full of that stuff. And fried eggs, and bread, pudding, juice and espresso. Da-yum! Best. Breakfast. Evar!! After that, I went out to find a supermarket. I ran into an old classmate of mine on the way there. He had switched courses last year, so it was nice to see him again. He got dragged along by his girlfriend. Poor him.
Eventually, my scavenger hunt for the super market bore no fruits so I returned, changed into my costume, and went off to have fun again.

I joined the Kuroshitsuji shoot, it was pretty fun. I have one photo from the shoot that I really like, which I will post some time later. I returned back to the hotel with a vocaloid cosplayer later. It's a shame I can't remember her full name, she was really nice. Anyway, I hung out with her for a while. Then we both parted ways. I decided to raid the dealer room again. This time ending up getting some figures of Tear Grants and Natalia (Tales of the Abyss) and Hijikata and Katsura (Gintama).

Surprise of the day: I wasn't hot at all in my costume despite the warmth. Strange! I changed back into my regular self after dinner. After a nice bath and changing back, I got out my camera to take pictures of cool cosplays.

After a while, I ran into ~Malthinae which asked if I had been to the Aural Vampire concert yet, which I hadn't, so I decided to take a look. I walked right into it when they were at their last song. Some luck. xD
After I got outside, I randomly decided to stand in line for the autograph session. I didn't know Aural Vampire at all, but I had nothing better to do, so I figured I might as well go and meet some well-known Japanese idols! The security was pretty tight. One of them noticed my camera and said to me that I wasn't allowed to take pictures of them. Didn't matter much to me, I was just standing there for an autograph.
When it was my turn to get an autograph, their translator noticed my camera and said that I was allowed to make a picture of them if I wanted. Err.. Okay then! They were really nice people. Raveman even turned on the lights on his mask for the picture. Awesome! I got a really cool picture of those two. I won't/can't post it on here due legal issues and stuff, though.

After that, I went outside and met up with ~Kinlyu and her boyfriend. Then we talked about Gintama, of course. Gintama's awesome, everyone should know!! Go watch Gintama, you good for nothing MADAOs! If you've got nothing better to do than read this dusty old journal of mine, go watch Gintama, you GORILLAS!! -ahem-. They parted ways with me not much later.
I decided to stay up for the Ghost Hotel event. That event was fairly uneventful, really. XD I was too focused on my teammates to notice anything around me, so I didn't get scared at all. Instead, I got really amused by the screaming and shivering of the female members on our team (no really xD).

Afterwards, I went to game room to play a few rounds of Super Street Fighter IV. Boy, my ass got kicked real good the first round. After I warmed up I proved to be a good match for other SSIV veterans. I lost more matches than I won, but hell, I had fun. Juri's as much of a badass as ever! >

Went to bed around 4.

Sunday

DAT BREAKFAST. AGAIN. I was surprised that Aural Vampire was also having breakfast in between all the regular people and without security. That made my respect for them grow heaps. Stars without a slight touch of arrogance and a VIP-mindset and such are rare. Totally awesome.
After breakfast I packed my bags and checked out.

Spend the rest of the day hopping around as Gintoki again. Raided the dealerroom one final time. I showed my support for the doujinshi circle Howling Riot by buying a notepad from them. Also got myself a Tsukuyo (Gintama) phonestrap (which functions as a keychain in my books), and a Balhier (FFXII) figure.

Sometime that midday... I got the biggest surprise ever! This dude walks up to me, and asks me: 'Are you *insert my name here?* I was like "Yeah, why?" and he was like "I'm your old classmate *insert his name here*!!" I was more confused than surprised at first. The last time I saw that guy was 4 years ago at high school, when he was still short, chubby and had short hair. He's tall now, long hair, has a beard, and lost his chubby-ness. The first thing I said to him was "Dude, you still have that one game of mine I borrowed you long ago! I want it back!" And he said that he was still living in the same place, so I could come and pick it up any time I wanted. So we exchanged phone numbers so I can go pick up my game AFTER FOUR YEARS. We spent a good while catching up afterwards. Once again, small world is small.

At 4, I felt like Animecon was as good as over for me, so I bid my farewells to everyone and left. Ran into fellow cosplayers on the way back. One of the guys I met there has a girlfriend who's also attending my school. He showed a picture of her and I was like 'DUDE! I know her! I see her at my school!' XD Small world is small again! O_O

Geez, what a weekend... I had a blast. Thanks to everyone I met there for a wonderful time, see you all next year!