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This report is entirely based on my point
of view. Please do not ask me to take off any remarks
on here. Where I live, we have first amendment rights,
meaning that we have the freedom of religion and freedom of the press.
In my case, it's the freedom of speech, which goes under
the first amendment rights. If you don't like the comments I
made on this page, sorry, but this is my page.
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Day One (Thursday, February 24, 2000) San Francisco, CA (7:00 am) Weather: 50º F (cold and rainy) "Getting Acquainted" I just woke up and I still had to pack a few things (my rice cooker, rice, and some packages of macaroni and cheese). I know, I know, it's pretty bad. Packing stuff at the last minute. What really sucks about today is the fact that I wouldn't get my paycheck until tomorrow, so my credit card was my only option for everything. I received a page from my friend Ralph. I called him back and he told me that he would pick me up in about a couple of hours or so. He told me that Ace will be be him. Two hours later, he shows up at my house. I'm dressed as Natsumi Tsujimoto from "You're Under Arrest". Traffic was bad. What can you expect, it's 9 am and usually it gets pretty busy during this time of the day. Usually it's a 45 minute drive from San Francisco to Santa Clara, but in this case, it was about an hour and a half. :( Oh, well. It could've been worse. We could've had the traffic cops telling us to turn back. We stop at the local McDonald's to get something to eat for about 15 minutes or so. Afterwards, we arrived at the Westin Hotel and meet up with Ray and the rest of the crew from the World of Anime. Unfortunately there was nothing much to do and my friend JoAnne wouldn't show up until 5 p.m. There wasn't really much to do. Since it was almost noon, I figured I should pay my fees for my hotel room. Got my room keys and brought my bags into the room. It was... quaint. I guess it's true what they say, you DO get what you pay for. Afterwards, there wasn't really much to do in the hotel room and it was getting pretty lonely, so I decided to head back into the lobby.. Well, it was still a waste of time, because there wasn't really much to do. I went into the viewing rooms to see what they had. Booooooring. Most of the stuff they were showing were things that were commercially released. I was hoping for some fansubs. I didn't get my badge until about 3 p.m. or so. The best part about it was, I was the very first person to get my badge. :) Sorry, didn't mean to brag there. On the other hand, why in the hell did they take so long to set that up? Bottom line, the first day was a total waste of time. Actually, I take that back. There was something good that came out of it. During those few hours (that seemed like a waste of time to everyone else), I bumped into Rob Miles. He vaguely remembered me, and we had a nice chat, he asked me to join him in the hotel bar and join him with the members of the Bay Area Animation Society. We also had some guests of honor at the table -- we had Steve Bennett and Hiroyuki Yamaga. It was exciting, we chatted with each other and everything. I think the highlight of that whole gathering was when Rob pulled out his discman and showed me a remixed version of the closing theme to "Ghost In The Shell". I was like, "oh, my God! This is just TOO cool. You should show this to Ray at the World of Anime. I'm sure he will love it!" I asked him, "did you remix this?" He's all, "yeah, me and the guys at SNM Productions." I wanted to meet the other guys who helped him on this; I even told him that. He's all, "you will." About 5:30 p.m., JoAnne shows up and we go to get her badge. The line was very short, so we got her badge in no time. As we were about to go to our hotel room, we ran into a girl who was dressed as Ranma-chan and that turned out to be Katherine Robertson. She didn't have a voice and we were like, "oh, no." She told us that she's a huge fan of Sailor Moon, and that she traveled with her friend Diana Kou. JoAnne was more than dying to meet Diana considering that the two of them are voice actresses for an on-line voice acting radio play production group, known as Atlantis Productions. JoAnne is a tape recorder freak when it comes to anime conventions, so she drew her tape recorder from her pocket and interviewed Diana. Afterwards, we decided that we should do a skit together. JoAnne and I informed the girls that we wanted to sing the song "Nagareboshi He" as a tribute to the late Shiho Niiyama Friday night. Kathy wanted to join us, so we said, "yeah, sure, why not." Later on, Kathy, JoAnne, and I went around the hotel lobby and looked for people to be in our skit. That's when we bumped into Mary and Cambria. It was really cool. We invited them into our hotel room and they showed us their costumes. :) Albert then showed up because he wanted to go over the lyrics to "Nagareboshi He" for our Shiho Niiyama tribute on Friday night. Well, it was getting pretty late, so JoAnne and I decided to go to bed if we were going to rehearse for the skit on Friday. Well, we ran into a little problem. JoAnne couldn't find her purse anywhere. I then called Kathy, Albert, and the other girls asking them if they had accidentally taken her purse. All of them said no, so we decided to call the front desk and ask them if they found a purse. They did, and we had the bell captain return her purse to our room. That was just too close. *whew!* Okay, lights out. :) Day Two (Friday, February 25, 2000) Westin Hotel/ Santa Clara, CA (8:00 am) Weather: 50º F (cold and rainy) "Rehearsal/ Tribute" JoAnne and I woke up decided to have a quick breakfast with the food and drinks we brought. JoAnne and I got into our costumes. I was dressed as Sailor Mars and JoAnne was dressed as Sailor Neptune. Afterwards, we decided to call the girls to let them know that we were ready for rehearsal. Unfortunately, JoAnne and I forgot the fact that most anime fans are all-nighters and end up stuck in their beds until 11 am or so. :p There wasn't really much for us to do that morning, so we decided to go and look at some anime. Still nothing interesting. The anime titles were still things that were commercially released. No fansubs. This sucks! :p We decided to go the line in the dealer's room. On our way to the dealer's room, we ran into Kathy dressed as Mako-chan. :) Mary and Cambria were there, too. They told us that they had to do some voluntary work for the convention first. Okay, no biggie. We'll wait until they get off. In the meantime, we decided to do a little shopping in the dealer's room. A little, you ask?! Yeah, I know what you mean. We were practically in there all day. There wasn't really a whole lot to choose from. Personally, I like getting either CDs, videos, or stuffed toys. Not really much to choose from. Although, it's still fun to look at what they have. I ran into a guy who was at the Howie's High-Tech & Games, and that turned out to be Al Flores (DJ Socket) of SNM Productions. He's all, "You were dressed as Ranma-chan at Anime Expo '99". I couldn't believe it he remembered me from so far back. That was almost a year ago. :) He asked me if I was going to be at the dance, and I asked him when is it. He said it was Saturday night after the masquerade. I told him that I would and then I ended the conversation and went elsewhere. After the dealer's room, at around 4:00 pm, Kathy and Diana (dressed as Seiya Kou in the blue Sera Myu costume, showed us the dance routine and everything. We were on the second floor of the hotel -- get this-- in the hall. *laughs*. Okay, so people would see our skit beforehand. Ah, what the hell. We've got nothing to hide in that skit. We waited for Mary and Cambria to get off from their shift. Once they did, we showed them the dance movements and lines. Kathy chose a song from the Sera Myu CD. Personally, I'm not into Sera Myu, but I thought, "oh, what the heck." The skit started getting much more interesting as it progressed. It was at that point that Diana said she didn't want to be in the skit. I was like, "it's okay. Thanks for showing us the dance, though." At around 8:00 pm, Mary and Cambria went back to their duties as volunteers for the con. We went into the karaoke room and sang our tribute to Shiho Niiyama. Too cool. :) We didn't expect to get a crowd of people clapping for us or anything. It felt great. :) It was me, Albert, JoAnne, and Kathy on stage; I was dressed as Sailor Mars, Albert as a character from the "King of Fighters", JoAnne was Sailor Neptune, and Kathy was Taiki Kou. At around 10:00 pm, Mary and Cambria came back and we went back to work on rehearsal. Talk about picking up movements and lines pretty fast. This was just child's play. :) We rehearsed for about an hour or so and JoAnne decided to call it quits. She told me that she was tired and wanted to go to bed. I said, "okay, sure. We'll work more on the skit tomorrow." As we went back into our room, JoAnne told me that she was confused on the dance movements. I told her the reason why she was confused was because when Kathy taught us the dance, she didn't break the dance movements into counts. JoAnne and I rehearsed for a little while in our room and I broke each dance step into counts. She then comes back to me and says, "ohhhhhh, NOW I get it." Lights out. Day Three (Saturday, February 26, 2000) Westin Hotel/ Santa Clara, CA (8:00 am) Weather: 50º F (cool and cloudy) "Showtime" JoAnne and I woke up. This time we decided that it would be best if Kathy calls us on our phone to let us know when she's ready for rehearsal. Cambria and Mary were the first ones to call us. They told us that they were ready for rehearsal. We said we were too, but we needed to wait for Kathy. No biggie. JoAnne and I had a quick breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Personally, I think $14.00 for a breakfast is a bit much. :p Couldn't be helped. We were starved. Sometimes when we're at conventions (and I'm talking in general), we forget to eat. :p Not good; not good at all. After breakfast, we ran into Kathy. She told us that she was out and about for a while. She wanted to see a few things here and there. We were like, it's cool. We went back into our hotel room and called Mary and Cambria telling them that we were ready for them. They came and we rehearsed in the same place as Friday. Unfortunately, Mary lost her voice. :( Poor, Mary. After a few hours of rehearsal, we went back into the dealer's room to look at a a few things. We ran into a girl who was dressed as Mako-chan. That turned out to be Charlene Hutchinson of Sailor JAM-Boree. I was worried that we might be performing the same song as them. I even told Charlene that. She asked me what song we were performing, and I said, "Sailor Busters". She's all, "oh, no. We're not doing that song." I was like, *whew!* Talk about close. I didn't want to take someone else's idea. No way. At around 5:00 pm, we headed towards the main theater for the masquerade. On our way, we ran into Sailor JAM-Boree. Someone stopped us in the hall and wanted to take a picture of JoAnne and I with Sailor JAM-boree. We were more than honored to pose with them. As for the group, they showed a huge reluctance towards us for some odd reason. Okay, so our costumes weren't as extravagant as theirs, but geez! :p We walked into the main theater to be greeted by the masquerade coordinator. At that point, I ran into a girl who was dressed as Sailor Moon. Not to mention the most perfect Sailor Moon I've ever seen in my life. She asked me if I could help her out in her skit; a last minute skit. So I'm all, "Oh, sure, sure, sure. That's fine. What skit did you have in mind?" She's all, "well... I was thinking that Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars could have it out on stage... you know, kinda like getting at each other's throats." I'm like, "sure, we'll do that." Our group was backstage all lined up according to skit numbers. We were number 6#. The only thing was, we didn't have a name for ourselves, so we called our skit, "It's A Senshi Mystery." For our first skit, I thought, "wow! This was really cool. :). We didn't win for our skit, but hey, I had fun performing in the skit. :) It was really cool. A few skits later, I was on stage with Sailor Moon singing the song, "Who Do You Think You Are?" Most of the skit was all improv. I was a little worried about fighting with Sailor Moon on stage because I thought the Fanime staff wouldn't like the idea, so I fought with her as little as possible. The audience was yelling "chair, chair, chair", and at the time, I thought they said "Cher". I was like, "do I look like Cher?" I was a fun little last minute skit. *laughs* Didn't win, but what the heck. It was just too cool. :) After the masquerade, we went to the dance, which was only, what, about an hour long, only because Fanime didn't make arrangements with the Santa Clara County about having an event after midnight. :p Oh, I had an opportunity to chat with the guys from SNM Productions, but not for too long. Again, DJ Socket told me that he remembered me from Anime Expo '99 and has a video tape of the event. He told me that he was willing to give me a copy of the tape. :) Cool! I want to remember past conventions. :) After the dance, JoAnne coaxed me to go into a viewing room where they had a Sailor Moon marathon. I was excited, but at the same time, exhausted. :p I started nodding off in my chair. JoAnne turned to me and asked me if I wanted to go to bed. I nodded and said, "yes" and apologized to her. She told me not to, but I know how much she wanted to watch the videos. Poor JoAnne. :( Day Four (Sunday, February 27, 2000) Westin Hotel/ Santa Clara, CA (8:00 am) Weather: 60º F (fair and foggy) "Till We Meet Again" Well, JoAnne and I woke up and went back to the hotel restaurant to have breakfast. We ran into Kathy who dressed as Naru-chan. She joined us for breakfast and we told her that we had so much fun performing the skit together and that is was nice meeting her. We exchanged e-mail addresses and said that we would keep in touch with each other. Well, there wasn't really much to do this day, mainly because everything was over and done with. :( We didn't see Mary or Cambria at all. However, I gave them my e-mail address beforehand so they could e-mail me and everything. Kathy, Diana, JoAnne and I said our good-byes. JoAnne wouldn't see Kathy or Diana until next year. As for me, I wouldn't see them for about 5 months. Aftermath Two months after meeting each other, Kathy formed her own cosplay group -- Senshi Mysterious. JoAnne, Diana, Cambria and I joined. As for Mary, we completely lost touch with her. After having four people in the group, we managed to recruit 20 people in less than a week. :) Among those 20 people were Lynleigh, Ashley, Will, Autumn, and Sandra. 
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