Everyone was taking different types of transport, me, Matt "Crimson Christian' Williams, Jim(from Evil Jim), and matt's brother Greg, we took the greyhound bus.

The ride there was alright, went smoothly, most of the bus was people headed to the con, once we got to Baltimore, hopped a cab, and got to our hotel (cab driver got confused as to which marriot it was) After collecting everyone else in our crew, we headed off to Uno's for grubbage, and the pre-registration line for our badges (can't get in without a badge folks...), then, a bunch of us went to the hotel pool, where Matt almost punched a bernie mac lookalike's girlfriend in the face as he got into the jacuzi( totally by accident, matt dosen't make it a habit to randomly beat up women he never met in his life) and we all retired to try and get some rest before hitting the con.

FRIDAY: Got up, everyone met in the lobby, headed to the con, we saw hordes of cosplayers, unfortunatly, I forgot my digital camera (Casey and sue, 2 other friends, loaned me their disposable cameras) basically, alot happened, so here's the highlights, Matt was dressed as yoji from an anime called Vice (or he could have been a gay cowboy, hard to tell) and hit it off with the ladies it seems, I, once again, got asked multiple times who I was supposed to be, despite the fact that I wasn't dressed as anyone, I didn't even have my trenchcoat on like at Genericon. hit a panel about collecting toys with another friend, Tyler. it was interesting, but the gallon of water and coffee i drank beforehand caught up with me and i had to run to let loose the hoover dam. but I caught the webcomic panel, wich was informative, I'll say that much, then, the dealer's room opened. There was a line.........to go into the dealer's room..........it turned on itself so many times it was more of a horde of jumbled people rather than a line. otakon staff moved us about 5 or 6 times to different points in line before leaving us alone, we lost Casey and Sue, it just ended up being me, Greg, and "Cowboy' Matt, but a cute girl in some sort of costume that must have reqired her holding a whip was behind us, which wasn't bad. we finally get in, it was like anime valhalla, hundreds of booths everywhere, tons of crap, tons of free crap, even better, I spent a good while in there, and saw even more cosplayers, including a bunnygirl who's costume consisted of bunny ears, and a small checkerboard string bikini, and stockings, and she was bending over the DVD tables alot. left the dealers room, wandered for bit checking out cosplayers, and getting asked who i was, and if they could take a picture of me (apparently, there is an anime or manga i have never seen that stars a character that looks just like me, so if anyone knows of an anime where the character is a tall pale guy with glasses and a goatee, let me know......wait, that's every anime) Finally fed up explaining who "Dan" was and that "Dan' was not an anime character at all, I went back to the dealers room and bought a Naruto headband, and a gauntlet, with my newly peiced together ghetto-naruto costume, i blended in with the scores of other naruto's and was finally left alone. eventually me, casey, Sue and Greg ordered some pizza and ate at the hotel before i headed back to catch the hentai panel with Tyler, and his friends Sivvy and someone in a chainmail shirt whose name I can't remember. As we stood in line at the panel, i managed to get snapped at by an easily irritable catgirl when she got in line behind us, all i said was "are you in line for the hentai panel?" no need to get pissy, jeez. After that I hit the rave/dance/thingy, it wasn't bad, hot girls dancing, impressive breakdancing, kung fu breakdancing (including a midget who could probably outdo bruce lee) and I guess somehow i ended up dancing with a cute girl dressed as a sailor scout, (saw her saturday night there too) went to the hotel room, collapsed.

SATURDAY: Got up, showered, hit the con again. Once again, it was a bit of a blurr, hit the artist room with Tyler, saw alot of really impressive stuff, (Greg bought a painting of Morrigan and Lilith making out for assloads of cash i guess) and Jim finally was dressed up as Wonka, the best Wonka, he had candy, and stayed in character. I guess Matt went up for kareoke and was a hit, an all girl Trigun crew became his fan club, he was hanging with them the better part of the con, and was hanging with the meryle a hel of alot more as everyone who went has now heard about 500 times (way to go matt!) I hit the Geneon Panel with tyler and Sue, and saw the trailer for the alternate Hellsing series, it was fethin' sweet, and they had Indigo on the same panel, J-pop, but pretty good, they were playing earlier at the geneon booth. checked out the gaming room, played halo on a screen that could reach my 2nd story window, once again, f'n sweet. and saw a ginormous Pirates game being played onthe floor, wish i brought my cards afterall. cosplay highlights of the day, the jin-roh guys, the armor looked proffessionally molded, the box from the metal gear games, and the sorceror hunter girl who's suspenders were kept in place with duct tape (no shirt) and of course, Wonka. Hung out at kareoke to video Matt and jim in costume, singing the theme to Sonic-X, and not the 4kids crapfest version either. matt and jim can really work a crowd. And outside the kareoke room, i ran into a girl in a kimono (sorry, no clue what character) and the Bride , Kimono girl had heard of Dwarftossing, if you still are checking it out, thanks, i am easily impressed by any proof people actually go to this site :) Had to go back to the hotel for a shower (temps were about 90 that day, and if there's one thing at a con noone wants to witness, it's the B.O. of a sweating geek.) before catching up with people to get foodage at the foodcourt by the hotel, some of the best chinese i have ever eaten, and a discount for otakon people no less. checked out the Manga library, i saw a bigger collection of manga at the dealers room in one booth, so i was not impressed at all, still a quiet place to read manga away from the hubbub and hyperactive types screaming "GLOMP FEST" as they tried hugging you, sorry, i only hug women. Went to the rave again that night, seemed even more packed and active than before, got in a conga line, danced with a jill Valentine who, in true D. Mason fashion, i think i scared her away, and ran into the same girl from friday, danced and got her # ....nice...... eventually i went in search of others from my group, Tyler said he'd be watching LA Blue Girl, but when i went inside, I looked around the room and saw the huge ampitheatre setting, i knew i wouldn't find anyone in that, so, after staying long enough to see girls doind weird things with candels.... I left, and either i called matt, or matt called me, but either way i went to the Hentai panel and met him there, caught the last of that panel, they were taking people from the audiance to dub over a hentai, a pretty attractive girl, and a man dressed as a bondage fairy......my eyes burn.....it was pretty damn funny though, best line i hear "It's just like the rugrats and i'm Tommy Pikles!" "Oh, maybe that's why it's so small!" caught up with matt, and the meryle from the female trigun crew, who matt had been hanging with all day, we all went to her hotel, lots of uphill, lots of sweating, lots of blocks, and me limping from the rave (but i would have felt bad if they went on their own and got mugged, or, as is very likely with Matt, wander into a gangwar or drugwar) and so, me and Matt hung out at a hoel room full of cute girls until 3am, what were we doing that late in a hotelroom full of cute girls you ask? talking about comic books....C'MON! WE'RE GEEKS AT A GEEK CONVENTION OK? finally left for our hotel, as Matt tried heading into drugwar territory (as i said) eventually we found some other con-goer's hanging out on a corner, and got talking with them, I guess the rave used to last until 3am, they close it early (1am this year) because last year someone was found with E, seems this year went a bit better, so maybe they'll go back to a later time, hopefully, next year. got home, foot was throbbing, i refused an invitation to go into a hotel room full of cute asian girls because i was tired (WTF was wrong with me??!! AAAARRRGGHHH)

SUNDAY: saddest part of a convention is when it ends, and things wind down. hung with jim at the dealers room as he failed to find much that he wanted (very high standards) and we went to the kareoke to do the movie theme of transformers, but Matt never showed (he was distracted), and the wait was 2 hours (kareoke closed in 2 hours) so we ditched it and went to watch Otaku No Video (Hi-fuggin-larious) everyone in our group hung out at the con talking, checking out cosplayers, and watching a giant kickball game full of cosplayers. Eventually they had to close the convention center, so we left, and went to the foodcourt, if you're ever in baltimore, stay away from Roman Delight, the service sucks, and this is coming from a guy who doesn't beleive in 'the customer is alwas right' so it would have to be bad. The original plan was to get the summer slam PPV at the hotel room to watch, but then we found that, despite what the website says, the hotel doesn't offer that service, so it was more of the pool, hanging out in jim's room playing munchkin and watching Adult Swim. before everyone headed to their own rooms to pack and sleep. The hotel almost completely transformed, instead of hallways full of otaku and cosplayers headed back and forth to the con, you had people in suits and tuxedos wandering around, it looked like a mafia gathering, it was sad. The next day was spent getting up early to make sure my stuff was together, loading Casey's Munchkin games in my bag so he wouldn't have to take them on the plane, and getting on our bus, which got full before we could, so we had to wait for the next one, and an hour later it showed, missed our bus in NYC, had to get on the next one, which contained a family with an irritating kid wandering back and forth along the asile until i felt like tossing him out a window, and a baby who must be fed curry every day judging from the wonderful aroma that exploded from her daiper and permeated the whole bus the rest of the way... Plus, there was some accident outside of NYC that slowed traffic to a crawl, me jim and greg tried to pass the time with a few games of Fluxx, but the seat i moved to to do that was right behind the baby bomb, so that didn't last long for me. Eventually we reached Albany at about 9 pm, having left the hotel at 8:30 am. I amazed everyone by my superpower of being able to determine the type of underwear any hot girl is wearing. Then jim's mom came, after jim had to talk her through on the cel, and took us all to TGI fridays, finally got home, to tell Reid and josh all about it, and sleep. Unfortunately, I didn't know the Minibosses were there until matt told me, so i missed them, and I could never find the antartic press booth when Fred perry was there, I was gonna have him sign a copy of Golddiggers, oh well, maybe next year