ALA 6 (2010) Report: Part 3 - Saturday

I woke up at 7am, taking in about six hours of sleep. I jump in the shower (because most cons suggest that you do), get myself refreshed, and iron out my Ouran uniform. I head downstairs for Starbucks - wait, what? $4 for a large White Mocha? Fine, fine, and with the coffee cake that makes $7. I swear, I pay less than that at FanimeCon.

During this time, I still need to figure out how to get the materials needed to promote the SoCal Host Club, which is about to take place in four hours. Since no one at the con has posterboards, I have to pull three-way strings with me, my roommate, and the hotel staff. In the end, I have to charge extra to my room for my roommate's parking with in-and-out privileges so that I can head over to Staples to get what I need. Thank god Staples was open at nine in the morning. After I head back, I get Ryan from his room, who just woke up. He's glad that I got the posterboards and he tells me that he'll be down there in a moment. Eventually I find the other members who are taking part, and I ask for their help to get the first sign up, which went right in front of registration.

We're supposed to get access to the La Jolla Room about 11am to get things set up, so in the meantime we're running around between getting this prepared, trying to get a commission of the Ouran emblem on one of our signs, and getting Ryan's items autographed.

We get hotel staff to open the door, and with everything just about set up, we go ahead and create the 2nd sign, and this would go in the elevator hallway on the ballroom floor since the only way to access the 1st floor from the ballroom floor was through the elevator - I really don't know why there's no stair access from the 1st floor, and no the escalator doesn't count.

With an hour to spare, I take the Host Club to do a bit of advertising, and my advertising I mean breaking my character as Mori to try to get the con's attention; I really don't know how many times I yelled "ATTENTION ATTENDEES, PLEASE LOOK AT MY SIGN" during that one hour. We also pick up the commission from Artist's Alley, and it looked beautiful.

By then, we were about to start. Ryan got everything autographed that he needed for that day, and with that we head up to my room on the 12th floor to pick up the laptop and the webcam...






By the time we got down there with my laptop to do the live recording, they already started because the line got too long. I must say, this was the best two hours of ALA so far. Shortly after we got done about 2pm, we wanted to get a group shot of the Host Club but with other commitments to gatherings and the Masquerade, it was just me and Ryan. We wait around a bit trying to get a professional shot of us and the signs but after awhile couldn't wait around, so I settled for this last shot, which is the commissioned front sign with everyone's signature, both participant and attendee.

With nothing else to do again between now and the Masquerade, I decide to see if I can get press seating for the Masquerade. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I had my request in at three in the afternoon instead of ten in the morning when the Masquerade head was present meant that I wouldn't be able to get my press seating. So either I don't go or forge the line. But for now, back to the pool deck.

Much more packed than Saturday, of course. By then it was 4pm, and it was time for day two of the 1/2 appetizers, this time over at Latitude 33's bar. As I ordered, I caught the tail end of Jets/Bengals which then I realized Wild Card weekend was underway. It was pretty cool to be chilling with the hotel staff talking about the game, reacting to each play. With the line for the Masquerade probably starting which meant I would get horrible seating to take pictures, the prospect of watching a bit of Eagles/Cowboys seemed good for a bit.

After 5pm I decided to roam the convention halls again, taking more pictures.

Eventually I did sit down with a group that was watching Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series. I was shocked to hear that they were watching it for the first time ever, so I spent some time with them watching the early episodes. Then I realized that I was in the line for the Masquerade too as well, but after they started to move I ditched the line and went back up to the room to relax and watch a bit of Eagles/Cowboys, which by the start of the 3rd quarter was already a blowout. I also start work on converting and splicing the Host Club feed for YouTube. I found out later that the sync was off so I went to Veoh and let the video upload overnight even with the slow internet connection.

I didn't do much else while waiting for the Masquerade to end, played a bit of "Spin the Vodka Bottle" with more Hetalia cosplayers and walked around.

Around 10pm me and Ryan went out to the pool deck to get some late-night shots with Ashford Lelouche.

I don't remember much else after 1:30am after I did the vlog with Ryan, but from what I can recall it involved 3am, Subway, a horse, and this -





-Day 2 End-