Unexpectedly, our hotel offers broadband internet and free long-distance calls for a flat rate of $10/night. Lauren and Jessica's two friends decided to cover this cost, so now I am typing this up on one of their laptops (and preparing the first batch of AX photos to go up on the gallery... though most of them are just from various spots in California =P)...
Yesterday, as usual, didn't go exactly to plan - we did get to The Block at Orange (as I discovered that was its full name) - which is basically a mall with no roof. Pretty nice place, except I had forgotten my sunglasses in the car... x_x Walked around various stores, etc... we left around 4:35 ( as the timestamp on the gallery photo says ^^; ), and headed over back to Cerritos to drop off some stuff and pick up my AX registration paper. We then went over to the Hilton to do the registration line...
... for well over two hours. x_x Hui-Ping waited in the horrendously long line (which wrapped around the long hallway, then all around a room dedicated to line queuing, then the actual room with the registration terminals). I was bounced back and forth trying to get my Industry pass - first, the people told me that I needed to wait in line, then another person told me I could go right in, then the first person went to ask about my paper, then several minutes later returned to tell me to go to Con Ops to ask them... which happens to be all the way in the convention center. x_x I ended up getting somewhat lost in the convention center, as the way to the mezzanine was complicated by retarded stairwell design, and the elevators weren't working. Got into Con Ops, scooted next door, got a written notice from Ruby Wang to give to registration that I should have been let into the registration room in the first place, ran all the way back to the Hilton, scooted into the registration room...
... and continue the bouncing act, being sent to opposite corners of the room with no one knowing where I should be. I think I spent a good 20 minutes waiting for various people to walk around to where I was standing (with the poor girl at the terminal having no idea what to do with my papers), but I finally got the pass, then proceeded to rejoin Hui-Ping in the line. As she had to wait in the previously stated long-line (though she had just made it out of the hallway), it took us another two or so hours to make it back into the registration room. I got a photo of the registration lady that I was tied up with (she's the one in the black top), and we finally made it out - I did a quick stop at the Marriott to figure out where I would be meeting with Lauren and Jessica, then we headed to eat dinner, as it was now 9pm (and obviously, we wouldn't make it all the way up to Rowland Heights to go to AI). Grabbed a quick cheap dinner, and Hui-Ping dropped me off at my aunt's before heading back to Irvine.
I spent the night basically setting up a home theatre system, as they had purchased a Kenwood boxed set of speakers/receiver/5 DVD changer, and they had also purchased a karaoke DVD deck and a wireless mic system. Simple wiring job, really - but it seemed to be over the heads of my aunts and uncles. ^^; I had also called Lauren to set up the meeting time and place. So, I crashed.
Got up at around 9am to shower, go to the factory, eat a small breakfast, and get dropped off at the Marriott to meet up with Lauren and Jessica, who were both delayed a little bit. I did finally meet up with Lauren, who managed to show up shortly after I had left the meeting place to find a phone to call her with ^^; We got the room, and Jessica and her friends came in shortly after. We tried to set up the PS2 - as usual, there were plastic braces preventing any guest input going into the TV. So, using my small luggage lock keys, I unscrewed the wall plate, which revealed some kind of signal splitter - apparently, an input and output. Fearing that disconnecting our input would affect other rooms in our floor, we didn't do anything to the splitter, and we headed over to registration after trying to break the plastic braces unsuccessfully. ^^; The line was a LOT shorter and went much faster - we were in and out in less than probably 20 minutes. We went to CPM, heard them announce they had Narue no Sekai (woo, another new season anime I haven't had the time to watch), waited for the AnimeOnDVD.com panel, and walked off with most of that group to the dealer's room after that. Just as planned, I captured Kazara's pores with a 1600x1200 capture (I had forgotten to set it to max resolution) =P
After the dealer's room closed, we headed back up to the hotel, where we finished tampering with the wall outlet. I just decided to unplug the input anyways, and I would just put it back if the hotel finds something wrong. ^^; We played some of the Saikano adventure game (*cough*dating sim*cough*), then some Soul Calibur II, CCS Tetris (after eating poorly cooked Pizza Hut from the in-hotel establishment), then more SC2. Jessica's two friends left to go back to Burbank to pick up supplies and laptops/router so we could have a nice little LAN thing going here.
That's about it... Lauren and Jessica played SC2 for some two or more hours, and Lauren went to practice mode on her own after Jessica stopped playing... the laptops and other supplies got here, so I started writing this update and uploading gallery pictures instead of sleeping... ^^; I need to be up for more panels tomorrow, and I've been lacking proper sleep since I've gotten here, so I should get as much sleep as a can ^^;;
Well, as I said, the gallery is updated, with pretty much what I've been describing in this entry, and some interesting cosplays I saw. Take a look, though chances are most of the AoD people already have ^^;