- 5/16/2005 -
.: ACEN! :.
Well, I'm long overdue for another post on my blog anyway, and I need to post the events of one of the best weekends of my life.
FRIDAY
To start out the best day, I went through the worst part: going to school. This was a necessary task, as I currently have perfect attendence for all four years. I don't really know how I pulled that off, but I hear theres a thousand dollar scholarship looking my way if I can make it work. After school, I was rushed to O'hare where ACen was. A quick registration (with free goodies! two manga's and a hard copy CD of the iRO install. I have no idea how iRO got involved in ACen when I wasn't looking...) followed by the getting of the pillows tickets led to some initial purchasing of merchandise. I'll get into that list later. When we were done, we went back to the room to drop off our new stuff and sat around there for a bit to kill time. We then left for the pillows concert. To my dissappointment (I should have realized this, though), they were not the first to perform, and we essentially waited an hour listening to some band play decent music. And then: THE PILLOWS! I managed to grab third row standing postions to it, and it was fucking awesome. They totally rocked, played most of the FLCL OST, and then, in an hour, it was over. Sawao (the lead guitar & vocalist) jumped around a bit, played some awesome guitar, and mostly pwned like the other three: Yoshiaki (the rythm guitar), Jun (the bassist), and Shinichiro (the drummer). But it wasn't over. The audience kept chanting, "pillows" over and over again. In a short while, they all ran back on stage again, and Sawao said something along the lines of, "OK, you want final song?!" Everybody yelled back, "YEAH!" and they started pounding out Advice from their 1999 album "Happy Bivouac". One of the best choices for an encore, it made my night and most likely my month. They rocked so hard...
After the concert I ran over to where they were going to be signing merchandise, and discovered the line was already at least 100 people long. I waited about half an hour and bought a CD & shirt, and get them to sign the CD. I managed to sort of say "thanks so much" in my mostly gone voice (from yelling so much at the concert) before leaving their graced presence. I limped my way back to the room with my dead feet and legs, and pretty much fell asleep.
SATURDAY
Saturday went a heck of a lot slower. I woke up around eight or so, and took my shower and ate my breakfast. We went buying again, and I believe we wasted around two hours in that area. We walked back to the hotel where most of the con events were going on, and I watched an episode of The Getbackers which has a crappy title, but looks pretty good. It's apparently about a group of two people who get paid to retrieve stolen stuff for a large fee. I guess it is a common occurance in the show (but I only saw one episode) that there is some sort of escort service of assassins that attempt to stop them, and they somehow make it through every time. I think I went back to the room after this to rest my feet a bit, and eat some lunch. I think we went shopping again after that, only now I discovered another section to it (took me all of... what three hours?), which has a bunch of artists. You can buy their work and so forth, or commission some of them to draw in front of you. I ended up avoiding that place for the most part, as it was kinda odd for me. There was almost no traffic in there, so when you walked by, the people in the booth kinda looked at you longingly, hoping you'll buy their stuff. Spooky. Sometime around now I went back to the hotel and down to the basement where there was an RPG room and game room. The game room sucked, it was always jam packed, and there was no chance of ever getting to play. The RPG room, however, was pretty cool. People were playing all sorts of random card games, board games, and other games... I learned to play "Go!", surrounding chess apparently around for a few thousand years. Pretty complex, but lots of fun. My friends joined a Magic: The Gathering tournament, where they were all knocked out by the second round (which took a few hours, matches were one hour, best of three). Back at the room, we ordered a pizza, which we didn't manage to eat all of, and was pretty crappy anyway. Back to watching some anime, I saw an episode of Madlax, which is actually good. It surprised me because it was done by the people behind Noir, a notoriously slowww paced anime. I hate slow anime. Another assassin anime, I don't know much about it. Lots of guns and rediculious aiming inherent in any good assassin anime. And the main character is a pretty sexy female. Eventually, it became close to midnight, and people were mostly sleeping. So, we headed to the game room. It apparently was STILL crowded enough that there was essentially no chance to play any game that didn't suck. However, we were randomly polled by a cool kid. He asked us if we believed in god, and when only one person said yes, he began discussing what all was wrong with religion. Random things like how Christian's misuse the word faith, and other time old arguments against the people and not the religion ensued. We eventually went back to the room and fell asleep.
SUNDAY
The last day of the con, it went by the fastest. We went back to the buying place again (this time I bought my moogle of awesomeness), hoping to find some nice deals on merchandise. Didn't work out, but it was still cool. Back at the hotel, we watched the end of the second Gundam movie, which looked like it sucked. I know the ending did, hehe. I found out that this entire time, they'd been serving free food on the second lobby floor in a room on the other side of the stairs, well hidden. I had a few bagles and some mountain dew, then left for more anime. Sadly, nothing good was on so I stopped by the RPG room again. Watched a few rounds of magic, and then left to find my friends again. We waited around in the lobby mostly until it was time to leave. The con slowly slipped into the distance behind us... It was a lot of fun. I wish Becky-senpai could have been there, I don't think there would have been a dull moment. Oh well. She probably would have been really tired from the other con in Mexico anyway...
Well, this turned out to be a lot longer than I orginally planned, but that's good. No need to forget the weekend... THE PILLOWS ROCK!
Total Spent: $92.45
Adion is currently listening to: the pillows - Kanojo wa Shisuta [4:10]
FRIDAY
To start out the best day, I went through the worst part: going to school. This was a necessary task, as I currently have perfect attendence for all four years. I don't really know how I pulled that off, but I hear theres a thousand dollar scholarship looking my way if I can make it work. After school, I was rushed to O'hare where ACen was. A quick registration (with free goodies! two manga's and a hard copy CD of the iRO install. I have no idea how iRO got involved in ACen when I wasn't looking...) followed by the getting of the pillows tickets led to some initial purchasing of merchandise. I'll get into that list later. When we were done, we went back to the room to drop off our new stuff and sat around there for a bit to kill time. We then left for the pillows concert. To my dissappointment (I should have realized this, though), they were not the first to perform, and we essentially waited an hour listening to some band play decent music. And then: THE PILLOWS! I managed to grab third row standing postions to it, and it was fucking awesome. They totally rocked, played most of the FLCL OST, and then, in an hour, it was over. Sawao (the lead guitar & vocalist) jumped around a bit, played some awesome guitar, and mostly pwned like the other three: Yoshiaki (the rythm guitar), Jun (the bassist), and Shinichiro (the drummer). But it wasn't over. The audience kept chanting, "pillows" over and over again. In a short while, they all ran back on stage again, and Sawao said something along the lines of, "OK, you want final song?!" Everybody yelled back, "YEAH!" and they started pounding out Advice from their 1999 album "Happy Bivouac". One of the best choices for an encore, it made my night and most likely my month. They rocked so hard...
After the concert I ran over to where they were going to be signing merchandise, and discovered the line was already at least 100 people long. I waited about half an hour and bought a CD & shirt, and get them to sign the CD. I managed to sort of say "thanks so much" in my mostly gone voice (from yelling so much at the concert) before leaving their graced presence. I limped my way back to the room with my dead feet and legs, and pretty much fell asleep.
SATURDAY
Saturday went a heck of a lot slower. I woke up around eight or so, and took my shower and ate my breakfast. We went buying again, and I believe we wasted around two hours in that area. We walked back to the hotel where most of the con events were going on, and I watched an episode of The Getbackers which has a crappy title, but looks pretty good. It's apparently about a group of two people who get paid to retrieve stolen stuff for a large fee. I guess it is a common occurance in the show (but I only saw one episode) that there is some sort of escort service of assassins that attempt to stop them, and they somehow make it through every time. I think I went back to the room after this to rest my feet a bit, and eat some lunch. I think we went shopping again after that, only now I discovered another section to it (took me all of... what three hours?), which has a bunch of artists. You can buy their work and so forth, or commission some of them to draw in front of you. I ended up avoiding that place for the most part, as it was kinda odd for me. There was almost no traffic in there, so when you walked by, the people in the booth kinda looked at you longingly, hoping you'll buy their stuff. Spooky. Sometime around now I went back to the hotel and down to the basement where there was an RPG room and game room. The game room sucked, it was always jam packed, and there was no chance of ever getting to play. The RPG room, however, was pretty cool. People were playing all sorts of random card games, board games, and other games... I learned to play "Go!", surrounding chess apparently around for a few thousand years. Pretty complex, but lots of fun. My friends joined a Magic: The Gathering tournament, where they were all knocked out by the second round (which took a few hours, matches were one hour, best of three). Back at the room, we ordered a pizza, which we didn't manage to eat all of, and was pretty crappy anyway. Back to watching some anime, I saw an episode of Madlax, which is actually good. It surprised me because it was done by the people behind Noir, a notoriously slowww paced anime. I hate slow anime. Another assassin anime, I don't know much about it. Lots of guns and rediculious aiming inherent in any good assassin anime. And the main character is a pretty sexy female. Eventually, it became close to midnight, and people were mostly sleeping. So, we headed to the game room. It apparently was STILL crowded enough that there was essentially no chance to play any game that didn't suck. However, we were randomly polled by a cool kid. He asked us if we believed in god, and when only one person said yes, he began discussing what all was wrong with religion. Random things like how Christian's misuse the word faith, and other time old arguments against the people and not the religion ensued. We eventually went back to the room and fell asleep.
SUNDAY
The last day of the con, it went by the fastest. We went back to the buying place again (this time I bought my moogle of awesomeness), hoping to find some nice deals on merchandise. Didn't work out, but it was still cool. Back at the hotel, we watched the end of the second Gundam movie, which looked like it sucked. I know the ending did, hehe. I found out that this entire time, they'd been serving free food on the second lobby floor in a room on the other side of the stairs, well hidden. I had a few bagles and some mountain dew, then left for more anime. Sadly, nothing good was on so I stopped by the RPG room again. Watched a few rounds of magic, and then left to find my friends again. We waited around in the lobby mostly until it was time to leave. The con slowly slipped into the distance behind us... It was a lot of fun. I wish Becky-senpai could have been there, I don't think there would have been a dull moment. Oh well. She probably would have been really tired from the other con in Mexico anyway...
Well, this turned out to be a lot longer than I orginally planned, but that's good. No need to forget the weekend... THE PILLOWS ROCK!
- Sweet Hellsing Shirt! $18
- A pillows shirt that says "BUSTERS" in a half-circle, then in a smaller font half circle it says "THANK YOU VERY MUCH I LIKE YOU" $15
- An ACen shirt with a nice logo on the back $20
- A Hellsing wallpaper $15
- The best moogle plushie ever $11.95 (blue)
- the pillow's FLCL Addict CD (and I got them to sign it ^_^) $12.50
Total Spent: $92.45
Adion is currently listening to: the pillows - Kanojo wa Shisuta [4:10]
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